


Seven To Ten Days

by Zaffie



Category: Chicago PD (TV)
Genre: Also I Love It When People Spontaneously Crash On Couches, Also Late Christmas, And Broken Showers, And Some Other Fun Stuff, And Soup, Because They Are Hilarious Together, Drug Withdrawal, F/M, Fun Bonding Fic, Gen, Just For Kicks, Lindsay And Halstead Need To Bond, Lindsay's Past (Sort Of), Might Get Vaguely Romantic, Post-Undercover Work, Spontaneous Crashing On Couches Is In This Fic, with some angst, yay!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-27
Updated: 2014-10-25
Packaged: 2018-02-10 15:37:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 22,553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2030574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zaffie/pseuds/Zaffie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After a long stint in undercover work which pushes her back into old habits, Lindsay goes to her partner's house to recover - because every fox needs a bolthole, right? Besides, Halstead might like having a new roommate. (He doesn't. He doesn't like it. ...well, just a little bit.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Friday

**Author's Note:**

> So, there aren't a lot of fics on AO3 for this fandom, but there are a few on ff.net, and I figured, that's cool. Even if there isn't a huge fic-writing community, there are probably still readers, yes? Anyway, this bloody idea has been in my head for months (MONTHS, I TELL YOU) so I had to write it out and then I decided to post it for the lols. 
> 
> Let me know how it's going! All feedback is seriously appreciated. So don't be scared to post as a guest. I'm cool with that.

He’s not sure what woke him, at first. Jay’s always been a light sleeper, and it’s usually more of a curse than a blessing. Still, he lies on his back in bed, the covers bunched around his waist, and waits for the sound to come again.

     It happens a few seconds later, and it’s almost a knock but not quite. It’s coming from the front door.

     It’s well past midnight, and even though Jay feels like an old man for being asleep by eleven most nights, he can’t really think of anyone who would bother him at this hour. Dimly, he wonders if it’s one of his neighbours, drunk and trying to let themselves into the wrong apartment.

     Then the sound comes again, and finally Jay’s had enough, so he springs out of bed and shivers his way over to the front door. He lifts the chain and then twists the handle.

     Lindsay is slumped on the ground, leaning against the door so that she falls inside when Jay tugs it open. He’s on his knees in an instant, pressing his palm to her cheek. Her skin is unnaturally warm, especially for this time of year. She should be freezing if she’s just come from outside.

     “Lindsay,” he says; professional courtesy. When she doesn’t respond, he tries her first name. “Erin. Erin, hey.”

     She opens her eyes and blinks up at him. Her head lolls side to side. “Halstead,” she slurs, “what are you doing here?”

     “Uh, we’re in my apartment,” he says awkwardly.

     “Oh.” Lindsay struggles to look around. Her eyes won’t seem to focus properly. “’M gonna throw up,” she says suddenly.

     Jay has no idea why she’s at his house at one in the morning, or why she won’t meet his eyes, but he figures that this is one of those things partners are supposed to help each other with. “Okay,” he says, “let’s get you up. Do you need me to drive you home?”

   That seems to knock some lucidity into her, albeit briefly. “No,” she says firmly, “don’t take me home.” Her whole body shivers violently. “Can I get a glass of water?”

     If she doesn’t want to go home, Jay isn’t exactly sure what he’s supposed to do with her. “Can you stand up?” he asks.

     Lazily, Lindsay shakes her head. “No. Nope. Uh-uh.” She smirks a little bit.

     “I’m going to get you some water,” Jay decides. He stands up and moves over to the kitchen, keeps one eye on Lindsay as he grabs the glass and holds it under the tap. She’s restless, eyes wandering, legs twitching. When he comes back with the water, he has to help her sit up to drink it.

     “God, I feel so sick,” she tells him.

     “Do you want me to take you to a hospital?”

     She shakes her head from side to side, rapidly, and then she can’t seem to stop shaking it. Her body trembles again. Jay grabs her chin to hold her still. “Not hospital,” she manages.

     “Voight, then? I can call him.”

     Lindsay grabs his sleeve. She stares right at his eyes, even though he can tell it’s a struggle for her. “Halstead, I just need to stay here,” she says clearly. “Just let me spend the night.”

     “Yeah, okay,” he agrees, because he can’t exactly refuse. “Sure. I’ll set up the couch for you.”

***

As she watches Halstead scurry around in his plaid pyjamas tucking sheets into the sofa, it crosses Erin’s mind briefly that maybe she shouldn’t have come here and dragged him into all this. It feels like a bit of a dick move.

     Right now, though, her head is foggy, her heart is pounding and she’s finding it really hard to breathe. She just needs _someone_ looking out for her, even if that someone is her partner and he gets paid for it.

     Erin knew she’d made a mistake the second she agreed to the undercover job. She walked into that place and it was just – it was a scene from her past, and she’d melded right into it. The trouble was, she’d been so focused on getting _in_ that she’d forgotten to think about how she’d get _out_.

     “Here,” Halstead says, and then he’s kneeling next to her again and looping an arm behind her back, “let’s get you to the couch.”

     Erin bats his hands away. “I can walk,” she says, even though her legs feel like jelly. She gets onto her hands and knees and her head spins. The carpet is a long, shag kind of thing. It’s purple. “Why is your carpet purple?”

     “It’s not,” Halstead says absently, “it’s just the light from the street. It’s sort of… brown.”

     “I like purple.” Erin struggles to refocus her mind, to concentrate, but it’s just so damn hard. What was she doing?

     “The couch,” Halstead prompts, like he can read her mind. Maybe he can.

     “Can you read my mind?”

     That makes him snort. “I wish.”

     “ _You_ wish,” she snarks back, and then realises that she’s not making any sense. “I just want to sleep, Halstead.” It’s been so long since she’s slept.

     “Hop up on the couch,” he says. “I’ll get you a couple of extra blankets.”

     Erin doesn’t know why he thinks she needs blankets, since it’s not cold in here. It wasn’t even cold outside, with all the snow. She’d stopped to lie in the snow outside his apartment, and the warmth of it had made her laugh. There’s still snow in her hair, dripping and sliding down her forehead.

     Moving one limb at a time, Erin crawls over to the couch. It’s hard – an impossible feat. Her arms tremble, and her legs burn as she hauls herself up and onto the soft cushions of the sofa. She curls up into a tight ball and starts shivering again, uncontrollable and violent.

   Halstead comes back with the extra blankets. He throws them over her body. “Better?”

     “’M not cold,” she mumbles. “Hot.”

     “It’s freezing, Lindsay,” he tells her. “Leave the blankets on.” He hands her a glass of water, holds her head up to help her sip. The _water_ is cold. It stings Erin’s throat as it goes down.

     “Don’t call Voight,” she tells him.

     “I won’t,” he says strongly. “I swear I won’t.”

     “Don’t call him, okay?”

     “I won’t call Voight, Lindsay. Just try and sleep now.”

   She really _really_ wants to sleep. It’s just so hard, because her eyes won’t close, they’re stuck open, and she’s freaking out about all the ways this could go wrong. What if she never recovers? What if she loses her job?

     “Don’t leave,” she orders Halstead when he starts to rise to his feet.

     “Uh, okay,” he says, puzzled, and crouches back down. “I’ll stay here, I guess.”

     She’s never been so glad of his easy compliance. “Good. I don’t want to miss work.”

     “Lindsay,” he says gently, “it’s Friday.” He glances over into the kitchen and shrugs, “Actually, it’s more like Saturday by now. We don’t start work until Monday, remember? We’re still on Christmas holidays.”

     Not Erin. She didn’t have holidays. She was working over Christmas, undercover in the drug den, where she’d been for three weeks already. She’d missed her unit, missed going out for drinks with them. “I hate undercover.”

     “Is that what this is about?” Halstead asks shrewdly. “You’ve been gone for a month. We were starting to wonder if you were ever coming back.”

     “’Course I’d come back,” she yawns. “You need me to look out for you, stupid.” Nausea swells within her and she swallows, hard. “I’m gonna throw up.”

     “You said that already,” Halstead reminds her, “and you didn’t. I can get you a bucket, if it would make you feel better.”

     Erin doesn’t want to throw up on Halstead’s stupid purple carpet. “Get one,” she commands. He rises to his feet and she grabs his sleeve. “Don’t leave.” She wishes she wasn’t so clingy, but she can’t help it. If he leaves, the anxiety will rise up inside her like a wave and then she’ll drown in it. If he leaves, she won’t be able to breathe anymore.

     “I have to leave, to get the bucket,” he says calmly. “I won’t be gone long, Lindsay, okay? I’ll be right back.” He disentangles her hand from his sleeve. “I’ll be right back.”

     Erin clutches at the blankets when he leaves. Darkness swirls at the edges of her vision and she trembles with fear, and something else. She wishes Halstead would come back. He makes things slow down.

***

By the time Jay gets back with the bucket, Lindsay is asleep. He stares at her for a second, making sure that she really is unconscious, and then he sighs with relief, sets the bucket down next to her, and goes back to his bedroom. Hopefully whatever _that_ was will be over by the morning.

     When he lies down, he can’t stop thinking about her. It’s been a good four weeks since she vanished on that stupid undercover assignment, and none of them could find out where she’d gone or when she’d be back. Jay’s been under pressure from Olinsky to get a new partner, which he’s ignored. It’s not like Lindsay’s _dead_.

     Having her turn up like this after a month of no contact – well, it’s freaking him out. He thinks she might be high, or coming down off a high, only he can’t be sure because his experience in drugs? Yeah, it’s pretty much zero.

     He doesn’t realise that he’s fallen asleep until he wakes up and hears Lindsay retching in the lounge. Carefully, Jay gets out of bed and goes to her. It’s been almost an hour since she arrived.

     “Lindsay,” he says, and she lifts her head from the bucket and glares at him.

     “I didn’t throw up,” she tells him, like it’s very important. “But almost.”

     “You can puke if you need to.”

     She shakes her head numbly. “No.”

     “Lindsay, please,” he pleads, “isn’t there someone I can call? Someone who can help you?”

     She shakes her head again and doesn’t stop. “N-no. You can’t tell them. C-can’t tell. Can’t tell.”

     “Okay, okay,” Jay says. She’s freaking him out, acting all skittish and anxious like this. He holds his hands out in front of him and moves closer, feeling as if he’s trying to calm down a nervous animal or something. “It’s okay.”

     “I just need to sleep,” she says furiously, and she tosses her head back and forth on the pillow. Her hair is messed up, a halo around her face, and for a minute Jay remembers exactly why he’s sort of got a thing for his partner, because she really does look gorgeous like this, with the scruffiness of a bedhead and her eyes half-closed. Then he gets close enough to see the sweat and the dark wetness of her hairline and he goes rigid with shock, because it is freezing in this room.

     “Lindsay,” he says, “are you too hot?”

     “I don’t know!” she complains, and she throws all the blankets away from her in one swift move. She’s only wearing a t-shirt underneath, which Jay remembers from when she came in. He realises now that it’s soaking wet with a combination of sweat and melted snow, and he thinks that he should have made her change clothes when she first arrived. She’s going to get hypothermia or something.

     “Can you stand up?” He grabs her arm to try and help her and feels goosebumps under his fingers. This isn’t natural. “Lindsay, have you taken something tonight?”

     She huffs out a laugh. “I’m tired,” she whispers, “but I’m not high. That’s the problem.”

     Jay pulls her to her feet. “I’m going to run you a bath, okay? You’re soaking wet.”

     “That’s what _he_ said,” Lindsay snorts, and Jay tries to ignore her.

     “Sit here,” he says, pushing her onto the stool in the bathroom. He leans over the bath and twists the taps. “Will you be okay to get in by yourself?”

     “Can I have another glass of water?” she asks.

     He goes to the kitchen and brings one back to her. She’s slumped against the wall, but there’s something less dull about her eyes. Being upright seems to be making her more lucid. “Here,” Jay says, holding out the glass. He pretends not to notice the way her whole arm shakes as she grabs it from him.

     “I’m going cold turkey,” Lindsay says at last, draining the water and setting the glass down firmly on the counter.

     “You mean – like withdrawal?”

     “Exactly, Halstead. Gold star.” There’s a sarcastic drawl in her voice now, and it sounds almost normal. Jay lets out a breath.

     “Why don’t you go to a clinic or something?” he asks.

     Lindsay shrugs. She fidgets with her hands, taps her feet on the floor. Her eyes dart everywhere. “Takes too long,” she mutters at last. “I need to get back to work.”

     “Was it being undercover?” he asks her. “Did they give you the drugs?”

     She shrugs. “Had to keep my cover. It wasn’t anything serious, just oxy, mostly.”

     “You were an addict once before,” he reminds her. “Weren’t you?” It’s not really a question, but Lindsay shrugs again and then nods, an awkward, jerky movement.

     “Makes it worse when you get hooked again. I know,” she says. “You can’t tell Voight or he’ll send me to a clinic. They make you go off it slowly. It’s drawn-out – it’s a nightmare. I’ll be away from work for weeks. They’ll send someone to replace me.” She shivers and shudders and says, “Withdrawal doesn’t last that long. I can handle it.”

     “But you’re staying at my place?” Jay questions, and then wonders if he should even ask.

     She smirks up at him, flashing that dimple, and for a minute she looks almost normal. “That’s what partners are for, Halstead.”

     Of course, Jay thinks. He leans over and turns off the tap. “Get in the bath, Lindsay. Don’t drown or anything.”

     He doesn’t close the bathroom door when he leaves, just pulls it to and then hovers in the kitchen for a minute waiting; for what, he doesn’t know. Eventually, the idea trickles through to him that Lindsay will need clothes. Jay heads into his bedroom, fumbles through the doors and comes up with a baggy pair of grey sweatpants and a navy blue hoodie.

     “Hey,” he says, knocking on the bathroom door. “Are you alive?”

     “No,” Lindsay groans. “Can I get out now?”

     “If you’re clean,” he jokes. “I don’t want your sweaty ass on my couch.”

   “Whatever,” she grouses.

     “I, uh, got you some clothes,” Jay tells her. He slides them in through the crack in the door. “I’ll wait here.”

     “Thanks,” Lindsay murmurs. He hears the sound of the water gurgling down through the plughole, and a minute later his partner opens the door. She’s wearing his clothes and her hair is dripping down her back. She’s still shivering, hard.

     “Get some sleep,” Jay suggests, jerking his head back towards the couch.

     Lindsay gives him a long look. “I shouldn’t have come here,” she says at last. “I’m sorry.”

     “Hey, no sweat. That’s why you have back-up, right?” Jay forces smile, waits for her to answer with one of her own.

     “Yeah,” she sighs, dragging the word out. “’Night, Halstead.”

     “’Night, Lindsay.” He trails her to the couch, watches to make sure she can get back under the covers, and then he returns to his own bed.


	2. Saturday

Jay wakes up early, sitting upright in his bed and panicking when he sees his alarm clock, thinking that he’s late for work. It takes a little while before awareness comes trickling back in and he remembers it’s Saturday. And Lindsay is sleeping on his couch.

     It’s probably because of her that he takes the time to make himself look presentable before he leaves his room, even if Jay lies and tells himself that his pyjamas just don’t feel as comfy today as they do every other day.

     Lindsay is sitting up on the couch when he emerges, cross-legged with her feet tucked beneath her. “Hi,” she says through a yawn.

     “How do you feel?” Halstead asks her. He goes into the kitchen and starts making himself coffee.

     “Like crap,” Lindsay answers bluntly. She scrubs a hand backwards through her hair and yawns again.

     Jay gestures to the kettle. “Want coffee?”

     “Uh-uh.” She shakes her head. “Caffeine’s bad for rehab. Do you have toast or something?”

     “Sure,” Jay says, and points at the breadbin. “In there.”

     Lindsay levers herself up and off the couch like it takes a lot of effort and saunters over to him. The sweatpants she’s wearing are too big, and they pool around her bare feet with every step. She sinks her hands deep into the single front pocket of the hoodie. “Hey, listen, I’m sorry I just – turned up like that last night.”

     Jay shrugs, keeps his voice light as he says, “It’s fine.”

     She hoists herself onto the kitchen counter and sits there, swinging her legs. For a few seconds, Jay turns away, stirs his coffee, and then he hears Lindsay saying, “Your bread is mouldy.” He turns around and she’s dangling the packet between two fingers with her nose scrunched up in disgust.

     “Oh,” Jay says, and mentally chastises himself. He should be a better host than this. “I can buy some more, I guess?” He takes the bread from her and chucks it in the trash. “Is there cereal?”

     Lindsay leans over to the pantry and pulls the doors open. “Nah,” she tells him. “Man, do you actually even live here? There’s like, nothing.”

   “Coffee,” Jay tells her. He raises the cup to his lips and takes a sip. “I have coffee.”

     “Well, yeah, but you can’t _live_ on coffee.”

     “Oh really?” he teases. “Is that a rule?”

     Lindsay stretches out a foot and pokes him in the side, hard. “I can kick your ass,” she warns. “We need a shopping list.”

     Jay likes the idea of _we_. “Does that mean you’re going to be staying here for a while?” He regrets the question almost at once, because Lindsay’s face goes quiet and serious.

     “I just – I don’t like to be alone when I’m all… like this. It gets really depressing, and stuff, and…” she’s struggling to finish the sentence. Jay knows Lindsay. She doesn’t admit to anything, doesn’t let herself seem weak, always tries to keep her guard up, even when it’s damn near impossible.

     “Hey, I get it,” he says, and swallows more coffee. It scalds his throat as it goes down. “You can stay as long as you like, all right? Just don’t tell your _dad_.”

     “Jerk,” Lindsay smirks as she hops down from the counter. “I’m going to shower, and then we’re going to go past my place and get some stuff before we shop. Okay?”

     “Yeah, sure,” Jay says. He raises his mug in a half-salute. “I’m going to finish my coffee.”

     Lindsay backs out of the kitchen. “Yeah, you do that.”

     “I will,” he says. “I’m doing it.”

     “Go ahead,” she challenges, and then she whirls on her heel and closes the bathroom door behind her, leaving an echo of a laugh, high and sweet, in her wake.

***

Erin curls up in the passenger seat of Halstead’s car and tries to stop her legs from shaking. She’s tapping her feet, wiggling her fingers, fidgeting her whole body – she’s restless and it’s driving her nuts. She wants to be _driving_ , not sitting here with nothing to do.

     “It’s my car, I’m driving,” Halstead had told her without hesitation.

     “I’m a better driver than you,” she’d retorted. “You don’t know the way to my apartment.”

     “Of course I do, and if you think I’m letting you drive in this state, Lindsay…”

     “I’m not _high_ ,” she snaps.

     “Your driving could still be impaired.”

     “Screw you,” she’d said, which is why she and Halstead haven’t spoke for the entire twenty-five minute drive to her apartment.

     He parks across the road and kills the engine. Erin can feel his eyes on her. She jerks her leg up and down and keeps staring out the window.

     “Need help carrying anything?” he asks. An olive branch.

     She thinks about turning him down, but her hands are still shaking and there’s a jittery, anxious feeling in her stomach which reminds her why she went to Halstead in the first place. She doesn’t want to be alone. “Yeah. Thanks.” She turns towards him and tries to smile.

     Halstead lifts his eyebrows, presses his lips together, nods. They get out of the car in sync, moving like partners. The doors slam in unison and Halstead locks them, and then they cross the road together and Erin unlocks the front door of the building.

     “The lift’s really slow,” she tells Halstead when he goes to press the button. “Don’t bother with it.”

     “Soooo,” he starts, “stairs?”

     “Yep.” Erin starts climbing, and she hears her partner following her. “It’s not that far up, really,” she tells him.

     “Of course not,” he mumbles.

     She wants to climb the stairs because her legs are so bloody restless and she’s pretty sure Halstead knows it, but she’s going to pretend like he doesn’t. “It’s faster this way, really.” It’s a lie. Still, they climb together, and Erin’s feeling a bit calmer by the time they get into her apartment, so the stairs worked.

     “Want me to find stuff?” Halstead asks.

     “Just… stay right where you are.” Erin hurtles through into the bedroom and starts grabbing clothes – from the bed, from the floor, only a couple of them are actually in drawers. She stops to sniff a t-shirt and recoils. Man, has it really been that long since she’s done laundry? Yikes. “Hey Halstead!” she hollers through the open door. “Can I wash my clothes at your place?”

     “Sure,” he calls back. “That’s fine.”

     The apartment stinks of booze, Erin realises suddenly. She’d given Justin keys, so that he could crash when he needed time away from Voight. Probably not her brightest decision. “I need to clean this place,” she says, mostly to herself.

     Halstead asks, “What?” as he wanders into her bedroom.

     “Hey!” Erin exclaims, and her indignation is a little bit real. “I didn’t say you could come in here.”

     “Whatever,” Halstead tells her. “Your room is a mess.”

     “Yeah, well, your couch is lumpy.”

     He laughs at her, and takes the pile of clothes from her arms. “I think this is more than enough.”

     “You’re probably right,” Erin admits, and then she darts into the bathroom and grabs a hairbrush, toothbrush, and a box of tampons because she’s never exactly been _regular_ and better safe than asking Halstead to do a midnight tampon run. “Take these too,” she tells him, adding them to the pile of clothes.

     Halstead goes cross-eyed trying to stare at her tampons. “Um…”

     “What? Do they scare you?”

     “No,” he says uncertainly. “Is that all?”

     Erin props her hands on her hips and gives the apartment a once-over. “Yeah, that’s it. Let’s get out of here before anyone I know shows up.” She tries to ignore the way her hands are shaking like crazy as she locks the apartment door behind them.

***

They take the lift back down, because even Lindsay’s not crazy enough to make Jay walk down like six flights of stairs with an armful of clothes (and tampons). He’s grateful.

     When they reach the car, Jay opens the boot and tumbles everything he’s carrying inside. A bra strap has somehow become hooked around his wrist. He shakes his arm, trying to knock it off, and sees Lindsay fall against the passenger door laughing at him.

     “What?” Jay asks, pretending he’s offended.

     “You don’t have to look so _disgusted_ ,” she grins, and comes over to him. The strap is caught on the button at the wrist of his jacket. Lindsay pulls it off and throws it into the boot along with everything else. “I’m sure you’ve seen a bra before, Halstead.”

     “Yeah, but you’re my partner,” he objects. “It feels personal.”

     “Just don’t look at the tag,” Lindsay says as she gets into the passenger seat.

     Jay closes the boot and thinks that it’s not the _size_ so much as the memory that yeah, Lindsay’s a girl, and she’s a pretty damn attractive girl, as well. He tries not to notice stuff like that about his partner – and it’s not just Voight’s threat, no matter what Antonio says. It’s professional courtesy. Still, sometimes Jay _does_ notice, because he can’t _help_ noticing, and then he’ll catch himself thinking that Lindsay is exactly the sort of girl he could see across a crowded bar and want to take home with him.

     He does get to take her home with him tonight. Unfortunately, they’re partners and she’s dating a fireman, so it’s not exactly the most ideal situation. An office romance gets far too complicated when your office is a patrol car, anyway. It’s probably for the best that Voight made his stupid rule (not that it matters to Jay anyway).

     When they glide to a stop in the carpark of the grocery store, Jay slams his head against the steering wheel. “I am an _idiot_ ,” he announces.

     “Well, yeah,” Lindsay smiles, and then she puts her hand on his shoulder. “What is it?”

     “Don’t you have food in your fridge we should have taken?”

     She laughs. “I’ve been undercover for weeks, remember? I cleaned everything out before I left.”

     Jay gets out of the car and she follows him after a moment. “Where were you staying? On the undercover job, I mean.”

     Lindsay shrugs. “Some crappy apartment somewhere. I was hardly there, anyway. I’d usually just get home and completely crash.” She hesitates, and then says in a rush, “I was coming down off a high most nights.”

     Jay keeps his expression neutral, keeps walking, doesn’t say or do anything that might upset her. For someone who pretends to be so casual, callous, street-smart, Lindsay’s biggest secret is probably that she cares. She really does care, too. She cares about other people, no matter who they are. She cares what Jay thinks of her, which is why he thinks hard before he says, “I used to hate undercover work. It always made me into someone I wasn’t, you know?”

     Lindsay lets out a breath that might be relief. “Yeah,” she admits. “Yeah, that was my problem too.”

     “So, you think you’ll do it again?”

     To his surprise, she just shrugs. “Maybe,” she says. “If they really need me. What about you?”

     Jay holds up his hands in mock-surrender. “No way. I’m out of that business for good.”

     Erin grins, and then she says, “Do you have a shopping list, then?”

     “We’ll make it up on the fly,” Jay decides. “That’s always the best kind of shopping list.”

 

By the time they get home, it’s getting dark and Jay’s exhausted. He thinks Lindsay might be too, although it’s impossible to tell, since she hasn’t stopped moving all day. Even when they get back and she falls onto the couch, she’s still twitching, shaking, tensing every muscle.

     Jay unloads the stuff in the kitchen. “Want to watch TV?” he asks.

     “We haven’t eaten yet,” she reminds him. “Did we buy the frozen pizzas in the end?”

     Jay searches the bags. “Uh – yeah, here they are. I’ll stick them in the oven.”

     There’s a blur of sound from the living room. Lindsay’s found the remote control.

     When he’s turned the oven on, Jay goes out there to see what she’s watching. She’s curled up on the couch with her feet tucked beneath her, and she flashes him that dimple. “Hey,” she says. She pats the seat beside her. “Come sit.”

     “You feel guilty for making me do all that shopping, don’t you?”

     “Just a little bit,” she says, and ducks her head shyly. “I’ll pay you back half, okay? Just remind me.”

     “Sure,” Jay says, and knows that he’ll never remind her.

     Lindsay glares at him. “That was easy.”

     “Oh, yeah, sure, because I’m going to _refuse_ to let someone pay for my food. C’mon, Lindsay, you get the same salary as me. What do you think?”

     She laughs and smacks his arm. “Touché.”

     Jay turns his attention to the TV. “So, what are we watching?”

     “I don’t know. I sat on the remote.”

     He snorts and holds out his hand. “Give it to me.”

     Lindsay slaps the remote against his palm. “Find something with lots of action,” she says. “It’s the only way I’ll be able to sit still.”

     “Yeah, I figured,” Jay says. “How bad do you feel?”

     She sighs, twirls a piece of hair between two fingers. “I’m all right, I guess. The nausea’s not as bad, but I’m sort of dizzy.” She rests her chin on her knee. “My legs hurt, and I’ve got cramps.”

     Jay thinks about tampons. “Cramps?”

     “Yeah, you know, like a weird stomach ache. I don’t know. It’s not that bad.”

     He flicks the channel again and finds _The Italian Job_. “Is this enough action for you?”

     Lindsay laughs. “God, yeah. I wanted a Mini Cooper _so_ badly after I saw this film.”

     “When’d you see it?” he asks, curious.

     “Some time after I started living with Voight, I guess. It was like a couple of months after I got my learner’s permit, which was probably why I got so excited about all the driving scenes.” She grins. “I drove like a maniac for a while after I saw this.”

     “You still do drive like a maniac,” Jay grumbles.

     “House husband,” she counters.

     “Okay, so I am a house husband,” he says. “So what?”

     “Hey, I’m not the one who isn’t secure in my masculinity,” Lindsay teases.

     “You don’t _have_ any masculinity.”

     She punches his arm again, harder this time. “Ugh, bastard. I’m actually offended.”

     Jay snickers. “No, you’re not.”

     “You’re right,” she concedes. “I’m not.”

     They both turn their attention back to the screen, as if by some unspoken agreement, and there’s silence until the oven alarm goes off.

***

At eleven, Halstead stands up and stretches. “I, um, usually get to bed by now,” he says apologetically.

     “How old are you?” Erin asks him, but she’s joking. She’s tired too – exhausted, actually, which is probably another symptom. Her eyes ache but she’s irrationally afraid to close them.

     “Thirty,” Halstead mumbles, and she laughs, because she didn’t expect him to answer. “Well, goodnight,” he adds, and suddenly he’s being all awkward and it’s really kind of adorable.

     Erin thinks that maybe she shouldn’t be associating the word ‘adorable’ with her partner, who she needs to be able to take seriously. She does take him seriously _sometimes…_ it’s just that he’s also adorable.

     “Can I take a shower?” she asks him.

     “Yeah, sure,” he says easily. “There’s shampoo and stuff in there.”

     “Thanks,” Erin says, because she’s just realised that she didn’t bring her own. Oops.

     It doesn’t take long to wash her hair, and then she just stands under the water for a little while, trying to relax. She shifts from foot to foot, and her arms have started shaking again, and after a couple of minutes she starts to freak out as if there’s a murderer coming in through the window at any second, so she gets out. It’s the emotional part of withdrawal that really gets to her. It’s like a hormonal overload, and she shifts through emotions faster than a toddler.

     Lying in the sofa in the near-dark, everything scares her. She bites down on her knuckles and tries to be calm, to close her eyes and sleep, but her mind keeps running through all sorts of nightmare scenarios that somehow still scare her even though there are two cops sleeping in this apartment. And both of them have guns.

     The gun thought sends Erin off on a tangent about where Halstead’s gun is, and then whether her own is safe on the kitchen counter, and then she starts thinking that maybe an unarmed burglar will come in, see her gun, and make the jump to murderer just because he can.

     Her own fear is driving her nuts. Her heart’s pounding, she can feel it jumping through her skin, and her whole body is twitching and unsettled. There’s a sense of hopelessness creeping in, too, like maybe she’ll never make it through withdrawal this time. Maybe she should go and find a dealer, right now. It’s past midnight in Chicago city, there’s bound to be _someone_ nearby who can hook Erin up. She should give up, she thinks. She won’t be able to go back to work on Monday anyway, because Voight’s bound to notice, and he’ll send her to rehab again. The trouble with rehab last time was that it depressed Erin almost to the point of no return. She couldn’t handle her own emotions. She’s a social person – she likes _people_. People make her feel safe.

     With that in mind, Erin throws back the blankets and tiptoes across the lounge and through Halstead’s half-open bedroom door.

     “Halstead,” she whispers.

     He mumbles, “What?” and she’s not actually sure if he’s awake or if he talks in his sleep.

     “The couch is lumpy,” she says. It’s true, but it’s not what’s bothering her.

     “Sorry,” he sighs, and he’s splayed on his back but he rolls over onto his side. “You want to come in here?”

     “Yes,” Erin murmurs. Relief floods her body, and she finally feels her racing heartbeat start to slow as she crawls in beneath the covers. “Sorry, Halstead.”

     “Couch _is_ lumpy,” he grumbles. “You smell.”

     She pauses. Should she be offended? “I smell?”

     “Yeah, you smell different.” He still has his eyes shut tight and his face pressed against the pillow.

     “It’s your shampoo,” she whispers.

     “I like your shampoo,” he mumbles. “It smells good.”

     Erin wonders why they’re having a conversation about what her hair smells like at – she checks Halstead’s alarm clock – 1:57 AM. She thinks that she should probably just try and sleep, because she might be able to, now that she’s in here. The stupid panic attacks are fading. “Goodnight, Halstead.”

     “Yup,” he mutters, and she’s pretty sure that he’s already asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm actually really enjoying this fic :D It helps that I'm rewatching the show at the same time. I'd sort of forgotten how much I like this show. Bring on season 2! 
> 
> Hope you mysterious reading people are enjoying the fic too!


	3. Sunday

Lindsay is in Jay’s bed when he wakes up.

     Under normal circumstances, he’d spend some time thinking about this, maybe staring at her – but she’s twitching and jerking in her sleep and he thinks he should wake her up. She’s soaked in sweat again, hair plastered to her face, the sheet sticking to her cheek, and she’s crying, too, big fat tears rolling steadily down her cheeks.

     “Lindsay,” he says. “Hey.”

     She wakes up with a sort of jump, and the whole mattress shivers. “Halstead,” she sighs. She’s still crying.

     “Are you okay?”

     Lindsay blinks rapidly a few times, yawns. “It’s really hot in here.”

     “You’re crying,” Jay says. It’s actually kind of freaking him out, the tears just falling like that.

     She sniffs. “Am I?” Her fingers touch her cheek and come away wet. “Oh. Sorry.”

     “Did you sleep in here all night?” he asks.

     She laughs. “You really don’t remember that whole conversation, huh?”

     “What conversation?”

     Lindsay winks at him. “I’m going to shower again, I guess,” she sighs. “Sorry about the sheets and stuff. I’m boiling, I swear.”

     “It’s fine,” he tells her. “Remember that one time I stole your towel at the gym? Now we’re even.”

     She rolls out of bed, yawns and sniffs again, stretches both arms over her head. The tank top she’s wearing clings to her skin. Her arms are covered in goosebumps. “That was a really good towel.”

     “Was?” Jay banters. “What do you mean, was? I gave it back.”

     “Well, yeah, but after having your sweaty self all over it? Gross. The towel was permanently retired.”

     For a few minutes after Lindsay leaves for the bathroom, Jay just lies on his back with his arms beneath his head and thinks. There’s a lazy, Sunday sort of feeling hanging in the room, and honestly, he’s a little bit surprised by how comfortable he is with the idea that his partner just spent a night in his bed. _Platonically_. Maybe that’s what makes it okay.

     After a while, he gets up and tugs the sheets off, and then he changes his clothes and goes into the kitchen for coffee. Lindsay emerges from the bathroom towelling her hair dry.

     “So,” Jay starts, “what exactly did I say last night?”

     “I still can’t believe you don’t remember,” she laughs.

     “Hey, getting information out of me while I’m asleep is cheating.”

     “You just said that you liked how my hair smells,” she says, and then she comes right up to him and stands on tiptoes to press the top of her damp head against his face. “Smell.”

     Jay inhales. “You smell like my shower,” he says. “It’s weird.”

     Lindsay laughs again. “That’s what you said last night, too.” She balls the towel up and flings it at the sofa, and then she sticks four slices of bread in the toaster. “Did we buy jam?”

     Jay checks the pantry, then the fridge. “Nope. There’s margarine, though, catch.”

     She snatches the container out of the air one-handed and then starts opening drawers looking for a knife. Jay weaves around her to get himself a coffee mug – he stands behind her and reaches up, over her head to the cupboard. Lindsay ducks out around him, hand on his hip like she’s checking to make sure where he is. It’s something that she always does. When they’re rushing in to secure a building, Lindsay will go behind him with her hand on his back, fingers curling into his vest. She’ll walk beside him with her arm brushing his, or she’ll reach out and thump his chest in the car, while she’s driving.

     Jay likes that he knows her so well. He likes that she trusts him enough to make that part of their routine; those little touches, making sure that he’s always by her side, right where he’s supposed to be. It’s a complicated relationship between partners. There aren’t many situations in life where you have to place your trust so heavily in someone else. It creates a bond stronger than anything else Jay can think of. Actually, he’s kind of glad he doesn’t have a girlfriend, because it would be a hard relationship to explain to her.

     “Halstead. Hey, Halstead,” Lindsay says, and she snaps her fingers in front of his face. “Are you alive?”

     He shakes his head. “Sorry.”

     “I want to go to the gym,” she says.

     Jay twists his mouth sideways. He shakes ground instant coffee into his mug and then follows it up with the boiling water from the kettle. “Okay,” he says at last, “sure. I’ll come with you.”

     Lindsay pats his arm. “Good,” she smiles, flashing her dimple at him. “Wear something appropriate.”

     “Oh ha ha,” Jay grouses, and he makes as if to hit her shoulder but she dances backwards, laughing and taking a bite out of her toast. Her hand trembles, and the toast dips and shakes wildly. Jay pretends not to notice.

***

There’s the obligatory ragging on each other’s clothes, but once they actually get to the gym they both sort of settle into a silent rhythm.

     Erin feels guilty for dragging Halstead over here this early in the morning. He _says_ that he works out most days, but she knows he’s lying. Still, he doesn’t look too bad, even if his eyelids are drooping as he punches. At least he’s had coffee.

     The exercise is Erin’s way of burning out the anxiety that’s making her stomach roll and all her muscles feel taut and stretched. She’s jittery, hyper-alert, with her eyes darting towards every movement and every sound inside the practically empty gym. It’s supposed to be closed on Sundays, but most members of the Intelligence unit have keys, thanks to Antonio’s buddy. Before this, Erin used to work out at a twenty-four hour place over on the other side of the city. She kind of misses being able to just get up and go for a jog at 3 in the morning. Maybe she should join up again.

   By the time they finish, the adrenaline coursing through Erin has turned into the dull ache of well-used muscles and the exhaustion of the mind that follows exhaustion of the body. She’s actually grateful for the post-workout fatigue. She mops her face with a towel, decides she really can’t be bothered to shower _again_ today, and trails Halstead back to his car.

     To her surprise, he tosses the keys at her. “You can drive.”

     Erin grins, catches them one-handed and slides into the driver’s seat. “Finally, the world is right again.”

     Halstead gets in beside her. “Feeling better?” he asks. He leans over to put on his seatbelt at the same moment that Erin does, and for a minute they’re all tangled up together, right in each other’s space. His hand touches on her arm, just briefly, and suddenly Erin’s skin tingles. She pulls back, away from him, and fixes her eyes on the road.

     He’d asked her a question, she realises after several silent minutes have gone past. “The gym helps,” she tells him, and out of the corner of her eye she sees his head shoot around towards her, catches his confused expression. “It makes me feel better,” she clarifies. “It stops all the jitters and anxiety.” She _had_ still been feeling hopeless and depressed, but then Halstead had brushed against her and it had been replaced by a horrible swooping in her lower belly that is driving Erin _nuts_. He’s her partner, and it’s stupid to think that anything might happen between them. It’s not even really her, it’s all the chemicals in her body going haywire and making her feel like this.

     She concentrates on driving. When they pull over at Halstead’s place she jumps out of the car ahead of him and bolts for the front door. Upstairs she grabs the first book she sees and sets herself down on the couch with the intention of staying there for the rest of the day.

     Halstead appears at the door. “You forgot to lock the car,” he says reproachfully.

     _Damn_. “I’m sorry,” Erin mutters, and she unfolds her legs and rises to her feet, taking two steps towards him and holding out the keys.

     He takes them from her carefully, gives her a smile – and damn, hell, bugger, Erin’s lost it. She can’t quite stop herself from leaning forward and pressing her lips against his, hard and confident and sure of herself.

***

For a couple of seconds, maybe, Jay lets himself lean in. For a couple of seconds, he closes his eyes and runs his tongue along Lindsay’s lips and she opens her mouth obediently, eagerly – and then he stops himself, pulls back and steps away.

     Lindsay presses both hands to her mouth. Her eyes are wide. “I’m sorry.”

     He wants to say something like _you should be_ or maybe _what the hell were you thinking?_ Instead, he stammers, “Got to lock the car,” and bolts out the door.

     The car locks with the touch of a button, but Jay takes a few minutes out there anyway. He leans against the bonnet and sinks his hands into his pockets and tries to sort out his whirling thoughts.

     It’s freezing. He gives up after a while and goes back inside. Lindsay’s still curled on the couch, but she stands up in a single fluid movement when he comes in.

     “Halstead,” she says, “I’m really, really sorry. That was stupid, and I didn’t know what I was doing – it doesn’t mean anything, okay? It wasn’t important. I mean, we’ve kissed before, right? Undercover?”

     “No,” Jay says numbly, and she frowns.

     “Maybe that was Antonio,” she says, and then looks up at him again. “Whatever. The point is, all partners have to do this at some point, right? And it’s not weird, or uncomfortable, or anything.”

     “Right,” he agrees, nodding, but he still feels blank inside, like his brain hasn’t quite caught up yet.

     “I’m just an emotional wreck right now,” she sighs. “I’m a mess. That’s why I wanted to come and stay with someone, so I wouldn’t just be alone with my thoughts, you know? And I’m sorry, and it was probably a mistake, and I can – I can go…”

     Actually, all the talking she’s doing is helping Jay to realise that she’s really _not_ herself. The Lindsay he knows covers her mistakes with bravado and a stubborn attitude. When she’s genuinely apologetic then she says it and moves on. She doesn’t grovel like this, or desperately seek his approval. She doesn’t talk in a frantic rush that makes her forget to breathe.

     “Lindsay,” he says firmly, “it’s fine. Withdrawal does weird things to people. I know that, you know that – it’s fine. I’ve already forgotten. Okay?”

     At that, she sniffs, hard, and sort of slumps forward into his arms. Jay catches her and holds on tightly, and she fists her hands in the back of his jumper and cries into his chest. Carefully, Jay folds his arms around her so that she’s pressed snug against him. He listens to her sobs and feels the hiccupping rise and fall of her chest as she gasps in air and he thinks that this is something he can do. He can look after her, because she needs it, and normally she’d never let him in. Jay wishes she’d let him help her more often.

     He holds her, and strokes her hair, and makes soft ‘ssh’ noises for almost ten minutes, and then Lindsay’s hysterical sobbing gives way to silent tears, and finally she stops altogether and her breathing evens out.

     “This is embarrassing,” she sniffles after a moment.

     “No it’s not,” Jay tells her, “don’t be stupid.”

     “We’re supposed to have a professional relationship,” she says, but she hasn’t released her grip on his jumper.

     “We’re _supposed_ to be _partners_ ,” he corrects. “Partners are allowed to have emotional upheavals on each other’s shoulders.”

     She sniffs again and then draws back to look up at him. “Yeah?”

     “Of course,” he says. He takes his arms away from her and feels the loss instantly. Carefully, he pushes Lindsay towards the couch. “Go on, sit down, and I’ll make… salad, or something. Put on a movie.”

   “Salad?” she laughs, with tears still shining in her eyes.

     “I don’t know, what’s a good movie snack?” His eyes fall on the DVD stack and he adds, “Put _Tron_ on. I love that movie.”  

     “The new one?” Lindsay asks. “Yeah, I liked that.” She goes over to the TV and Halstead sighs in relief, because she’s calming down. All she needs to do is keep it together tomorrow, and she’ll be fine.

     When they’re sitting down together and the movie is on, Lindsay shifts over to him. She pulls her legs up to her chest and rests her head on his shoulder.

     “Lindsay,” Jay starts, uncertain about what to say, “it’s going to be okay, you know? You’ll get through this. Voight won’t know.”

     She looks up at him with guilt all over her face. “You’re not supposed to take drugs when you’re undercover,” she whispers, “but everyone knows you have to. It’s impossible not to, when everyone else is, and they want to know why you’re different, why you’re acting so high and mighty, how you could _not_ want a fix.”

     “I understand,” he tells her. “You’re not yourself. You’re playing a role, and you have to do whatever it takes.” He has his fair share of undercover mistakes. “It’s hard for all of us, Erin.” He sucks in a breath when he does it; calls her by her first name, crosses over into non-partner territory. She doesn’t seem to notice, though, but she presses her face harder against his shoulder and he lifts his arm and wraps it over her shoulders so that she’s leaning into his chest.

     “They’ll kick me out,” she says softly. “I don’t have anything else in my life, Jay. I don’t know who I’d be without the job.”

     “That’s stupid,” he tells her. “You’d be the same person you always have been. I know you, Erin. I always know who you are.”

     She smirks and tucks her hand in against his side. “When did you start being so sweet?”

     “I’ve always been like this,” he boasts. “It took you this long to notice?”

     The banter seems to soothe her, because he feels her whole body relax. “What about Voight?” she murmurs.

     “What about Voight?” he asks. “Voight’s broken his fair share of the rules. He’s not going to crucify you for doing the same. Anyway, Voight doesn’t have to know. That’s why you’re staying with me, right? So that I can help you.” He pauses, looks down at her. “I am going to help you, Lindsay. You believe me, right?”

     “Yeah, Halstead.” Their brief foray into the privilege of first names is over.

     Jay doesn’t mind. Really, his partner couldn’t be much closer to him than she is right now. This is good, he tells himself, tracing circles on Lindsay’s shoulder through her shirt, feeling her breath hot on his chest. This is perfect.


	4. Monday

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, it's been ages since I've updated this! In honour of a new season, here, have a new chapter. And expect another one soon, because I'll probably want to write after I see the new episode!

The fatigue kicks in properly on Erin’s first day of work, which is _completely_ unfair.

     Halstead wakes her early. He’s lying on his side in the bed, propped on an elbow, and he touches her shoulder gently. “Lindsay. Hey.”

     Her eyes jolt open, and she stares at him before rolling over onto her back and slinging an arm over her eyes with a groan. Her whole body is a mass of aching muscles and stiff joints. “We have to go to work,” she sighs.

     “In about forty minutes,” Halstead agrees. “Come on, get up.”

     “I can’t,” Erin mumbles. “I need a sick day.”

     Her partner shakes his head, pulls her arm away from her eyes. “You can’t take a sick day. You have to go in to work and put on a brave face, okay? I’ll help you.” Erin rubs her eyes, and Halstead climbs out of the bed and goes to stand next to her. He holds out his hand. “What do you say?”

     She takes a deep breath. “Okay.” She slides her hand into his, and he hauls her up and out of bed.

     “Good,” Halstead smiles. “I knew you could do it.”

     “Yeah, yeah,” Erin mumbles. “I’m driving.”

***

The muscles in Erin’s legs stop working while she’s driving and she lets the clutch up. The car shudders to a stall.

     She swears. “Halstead, I’m sorry.”

     He glances at the clock, but pretends he isn’t worried. “It’s fine, Lindsay, just restart the engine.”

   She does, and manages to get them the rest of the way to work without any more troubles. The stairs into the building look incredibly daunting once she finally gets out of the car.

     “I can’t do this,” she tells Halstead.

     “Don’t be stupid,” he responds easily, and he puts a hand between her shoulder blades and pushes her along the sidewalk, up the stairs and into the precinct.

     Platt smiles broadly when she comes in. “Detective Lindsay! You’re back!”

     Awkwardly, Erin forces a smile in return. “Hey.” She turns towards the next flight of stairs and has to take a second to steel herself for the pain. The muscles in her thighs are burning by the time she gets through the cage and into her office. Halstead walks beside her and one step behind her the entire time. It’s nice, to know that he’s got her back.

     Upstairs, the team welcomes her back and she starts to feel almost normal. Voight slaps her on the shoulder and then retreats to his office, but she can tell from his face that he’s relieved she’s okay.

     Halstead waits until their boss isn’t looking, and then he leans in close and murmurs in her ear, “Put your hands in your pockets.”

     Erin glances down and he’s right, her hands are trembling. She tucks them inside her jacket and it reminds her so much of what Voight said to her, after she grabbed Diego, that she has to look over her shoulder and check it’s really Halstead. He smiles at her with one side of his mouth and she gives him a little nod as thanks. Maybe this is going to work.

***

Her reflexes are seriously depleted. They file into the abandoned building two at a time, partners together, and Erin moves in front of Halstead, brushing her hand along his side so that he knows where she is. She can hear him breathing behind her, hear his footsteps brushing the dusty ground, and it’s comforting, that he’s got her back.

     He doesn’t have her front though, which is where their fugitive appears, the knife flashing in his hand. Erin thinks, _crap_ , and her eyes go wide as she tries to jump back, but she’s not fast enough. The knife slashes across her forehead with a sting that tells her the cut is shallow. Blood starts to swell immediately and run down her face. Erin ducks the man’s next swing, and then Halstead is beside her. He doesn’t have his gun out, he doesn’t stop to identify himself. Instead he throws himself at the man in a full-on tackle, taking the guy down. He slams the man’s head into the concrete floor and shoves a knee into his gut. Forearm over the man’s throat, and Erin darts forward and stomps on the guy’s wrist so that his hand twitches and he drops the knife.

     “Bastard,” Halstead growls, and he stays there, pinning the guy, while Erin radios the team. The blood is dripping into her eyes now. It burns, and it’s getting hard to see. Her head feels light.

     She misses the moment when Antonio takes the perp from Halstead, but suddenly her partner is there, hands pressing down on her shoulders.

     Now that he’s here, Erin can let herself feel the pain. “Ow,” she groans, and she puts a hand up to dab gingerly at the blood on her forehead.

     “How deep is it?” Halstead asks urgently.

     More blood floods into her eyes. She blinks rapidly. “Not deep,” she assures him. “Just lots of blood.”

     Voight takes one look at Erin when he arrives and dismisses her. “Halstead, take her to the hospital or something,” he says. “She might need stitches.”

     “I’m honestly fine,” Erin protests. She can’t actually see through all the blood in her eyes, but that’s okay.

   “Let’s go,” Halstead says. He sounds relieved, like he wants an excuse to get her out of here. He might be right, Erin thinks. She’s not at the top of her game.

     “Does anyone have a clean sleeve, or something?” she asks. “There’s blood in my eyes.”

     “Here,” Olinsky says, and he hands her his beanie.

     Erin almost laughs. She swipes at her eyes and passes it back with an apology. That actually has helped, because now she’s seeing the world through a red haze, instead of seeing black. She follows Halstead out of the warehouse, and when they’re out of sight of the team, she reaches up and curls her hand into the collar of his coat.

     “Don’t worry,” Halstead tells her. “I’ve got you.” He’s so calm; such a strong, comforting presence. Erin hums happily and then she steps around in front of him and leans into his chest with a sigh. Halstead puts his arms around her and hangs on tight.

     “God, I love you,” Erin mumbles into his coat. She’s so exhausted that she doesn’t really register what she’s said until she feels him freeze, and then she thinks, oops, she’s screwed up again.

     Halstead relaxes seconds later, though. “You’re going to be okay,” he says, resting his chin on the top of her head. “You’re going to be great, Erin.”

     She nods, just a little bit, and then says, “I really can’t see much.”

     Halstead steps backwards away from her. “Just hold on to me,” he tells her. “I’ll get you out of here.”

***

The hospital plasters little bits of gauze across the cut to hold it shut and stop it from bleeding, but she doesn’t need stitches. Jay’s glad it’s not serious, but he isn’t sure if he should take Lindsay back to work.

     “Oh come on, stop fussing,” she tells him. Her eyes are glazed with exhaustion.

     “If I told Voight you had concussion he wouldn’t make you come back,” Jay says thoughtfully. “He might make you take the rest of the day off anyway, since the case is basically wrapped.”

     “There’s always more work to do,” Lindsay reminds him. “And I’m way behind on paperwork.”

   He agrees to take her back to the office, in the end, even though it’s getting late. The team is still out when they get there, so Jay doesn’t feel like he has to watch for Voight over his shoulder when he makes Lindsay a cup of coffee. He sits her down at her desk, firmly, and says, “Do paperwork, then.”

     She sighs, and leans backwards. He’s standing behind her with hands on her shoulders, and her head presses into him. “I’m so tired,” she admits.

     “Yeah, well, you’ve had a hell of a first day back.”

     “Absolutely.”

     Jay takes a step away, and Lindsay sighs, and sits upright again. “Voight will probably be back soon,” he says quietly, explaining himself, but he doesn’t move his hand from her shoulder.

     “We don’t have to avoid each other just because he says so,” Lindsay argues. She hooks her fingers through his belt loop, pulling him closer. “Don’t let him make you feel guilty.”

     “I don’t feel guilty,” Jay promises. “We’re partners, aren’t we? We’re supposed to look out for each other.” He squeezes her shoulder, gently. “I’m just looking out for you.”

     Lindsay looks up at him, eyes bright, lips parted. Her forehead is red around the cut. “Yeah,” she says. “You are.”

     Out of nowhere, Jay finds himself remembering what it felt like to kiss her. He presses his lips together and tells himself sternly not to think about it. Not ever again.

     They’re warned to the team’s arrival by Olinsky and Ruzek arguing as they come up the stairs, and Lindsay unhooks her fingers from Jay’s belt loop. He releases her shoulder and steps away, back towards his own desk, and waits until Voight arrives.

     “The hospital said she was fine,” he tells his boss quietly. “It’s just a shallow cut.”

     “What happened in there?” Voight asks, and even though his voice is low, his eyes are furious. “Where were you?”

     Jay takes a deep breath. “Yeah, I should have stopped him. Okay? You can’t tell me anything I’m not already telling myself.”

     “Your job is to protect your partner, not ogle her,” Voight growls, and Jay catches his breath at the unfairness of it. “If you can’t do your job, I’ll have you moved.”

     He wants to argue. He wants to say something brutal, something rude. He wants to explain that it’s not his fault that Erin can’t seem to figure out how to put one foot in front of the other today. Instead, he says, “I can do my job.” He stares straight at Voight, not cowed, not beaten. “Can you do yours?”

     For a second, Voight just glares at him, and Jay thinks he’s made a huge mistake. Then, reluctantly, the man nods. He turns away and moves towards the whiteboard.

     Jay blows out a breath and glances over to Lindsay, raising his eyebrows. She gives him a wan little smile and mouths, “Sorry.”

     He just shrugs, because he’s got her back no matter what Voight says.

***

They leave the building at different times, and Jay parks the car around the corner and waits for his partner where Voight won’t see. She’s shaking again as she slides into the passenger seat, buckles her belt and waits for him to drive.

     They’re quiet, for a little while, and then Lindsay says, “Sorry about Voight.”

     “It’s not your fault he’s overprotective,” Jay tells her.

     “Yeah,” she sighs. “It’s not just about me, though, you know? He wants to make sure the unit works properly.”

     “What, does he think we’re going to start making out on the desks at every opportunity?” Jay scoffs. He wishes he hadn’t said that, actually, because now he’s picturing it. This is totally inappropriate.

     “God knows what he thinks, Halstead,” Lindsay groans. “He’s Voight. He thinks in his own damn way.”

     Jay chuckles. “Well _that’s_ true.”

     “Hey,” she says, and he glances away from the road for a second to look at her. “Can I just say how grateful I am, that I can come home with you tonight? I’m exhausted, Halstead. It makes me feel a whole lot better that I have a safe place to crash.”

     She hasn’t been this honest with him in a long time. “Thanks,” he says, “for telling me.”

     “Sometimes I think I don’t tell you enough.”

     “Sometimes I think that too.”

     “’Tonio and Jules used to talk about everything,” she mumbles. “We should be more like them, huh?”

     “We haven’t been partners for as long as them,” Jay reminds her. “It’s okay if we’re different.”

     “Yeah,” she sighs, and there’s relief in her voice. “We can be different.”


	5. Tuesday

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning: mentions of past abortion.

Erin doesn’t sleep much. She tosses and turns and tries not to wake Halstead and every time she closes her eyes they just snap open again of their own accord. She’s too buzzed to sleep, and the cut on her forehead is throbbing.

     Halstead throws his arm over her body some time during the early morning, pressing her to the mattress. “Just lie still,” he groans. “Go to sleep.”

     “I can’t sleep,” Erin complains. “I’m exhausted.”

     “Stop fidgeting,” Halstead mumbles, and then he pulls her in close to him and folds his arms around her so that her face is pressed into his chest.

     Erin’s all set to declare her independence and struggle back to her side of the bed, but it’s actually kind of warm like this. Halstead is breathing slowly and deeply, his chest rising and falling in a steady rhythm. She finds herself starting to relax with the repetitive sounds of his breath.

     “Jay,” she says quietly.

     He grunts. “What?”

     “Nothing.”

     Halstead cracks open one eye and stares down at her. “I’m tired,” he moans. “Talk later.”

     “Okay,” Erin whispers. She tucks her arms up against her chest and folds one of her hands tightly into the fabric of his pyjama shirt, so that he can’t push her away even if he wants to.

***

Jay wakes up first, which doesn’t surprise him, given how much Lindsay slept last night. He looks over at the clock, and they have a few minutes before they have to actually get up.

     He glances down at Lindsay. Her eyes are finally closed, lashes resting on her cheeks. Her mouth is a slack bow and her cheeks are pink. Hair ruffles around her face, moving slightly when she breathes.

     Jay feels incredibly privileged, to be able to watch her like this. She’s completely open and she trusts him enough to sleep in his bed, because she’s in withdrawal, and it makes her feel vulnerable. Regardless of what they said to each other last night, he thinks that this is a huge step in their partnership. This is her sharing an emotional burden with him.

     Her hand is clenched into his shirt. Gently, Jay touches her knuckles. “Erin,” he murmurs.

     She mumbles something incoherent, squirms a little bit and presses her face against him.

     Jay almost laughs, because she’s so small and sleepy. He brushes some of her hair away from her face and strokes along her cheekbone. “Erin,” he says again, quiet and soothing. “Hey, Erin, open your eyes, come on.”

     She yawns with her nose scrunched up and then she blinks and stares up at him out of exhausted hazel eyes.

     “Good morning, sunshine,” Jay teases.

     “Hi,” Lindsay says, quiet and a little bit shy.

     Jay can feel himself smirking, and he knows that Lindsay sees it, because she rolls her eyes at him. “What?” he asks.

     “You’re making that face again,” she sighs.

     “What face?”

     “The ‘oh-I’m-so-clever’ Jay Halstead face.” She puts both hands up to her cheeks and pushes her hair out of her eyes.

     There’d been a moment back there, somewhere, when Jay had thought that he’d wanted to kiss her. It’s gone, now, and it’s too late to look back, so he struggles to cover his disappointment. “Pumped for work?” he asks her.

     “Oh, absolutely,” she says sarcastically, rolling her eyes. “Another great day where I try hard not to fall asleep while we’re chasing criminals.”

     “Does that mean you’re going to let me drive?”

     She just shakes her head and sits up, stretching her arms out. “I need the shower first.”

     “That’s fine,” Jay says with a shrug. “I don’t need to shower this morning anyway.”

     Lindsay snorts. “Uh, yes you do.”

     “Why are you so mean to me?” he asks rhetorically, and he stands up and gets out of bed. “Go on, then, shower police. I’ll make toast.”

     “Thank you!” she calls over her shoulder, already on her way out of the room. Jay laughs as he watches her leave.

***

All humour stops as soon as they get to work. There’s a little girl’s photo pinned up on the board, and Voight slaps it with the back of his hand.

     “Child trafficking,” he says, and his lip curls. “We’ve already had two dead in the past month, so let’s not make it a third. This kid vanished this morning from her day care centre. Let’s find her.”

     Jay watches as Lindsay’s face goes pale. It’s no secret that she’s empathic – the cases that hit her the hardest are always the ones with innocent victims, the people she can understand. Still, he wonders if this is too much, too soon. When they settle down to their desks, Jay gives her the look, and she nods and stands up, weaving quietly out of the room.

     Two minutes later, he follows her round the back. She’s standing in one of the interview rooms, and she lifts her eyebrows at him when he comes in and says, “Well?”

     “Can you handle this?” Jay asks bluntly.

     She steps closer, so that she’s glaring up at him, jaw set, eyes narrowed, arms folded. “Yeah, Jay, I can handle this. Why? Do you think I can’t?”

     “No,” he says. “But I want you to tell me if you can’t, understand? This is gonna be a tough case, Erin, and I need to know that you’re okay.”

     Something softens around her eyes, but there’s still a hard glitter in them. “I will tell you if I’m not okay,” she says, and then she punches him in the shoulder.

     They go back to work, and not long after that, Antonio storms up to the board and slaps a face on it. Bald head, thick, dark eyebrows and a crooked, twice-broken nose. Everyone in the room groans, except for Atwater, who’s still too new to know him.

     “Joey Vertano,” Antonio says grimly.

     “We’ve come across him before,” Jay explains, leaning towards Atwater’s desk. “He’s got a finger on the pulse of every criminal activity in Chicago, I swear.”

     Voight takes one look at the face on the board and sums it all up for them. “There’s no way we’re going to be able to take him down.”

     Lindsay’s practically vibrating behind her desk. “So we find the kid,” she says. “That’s good enough for me.”

     The unis have done all the footwork for them, and so Jay and Antonio set the information out across the board. The girl’s timeline, her life, their theories and suspects. It’s the first time Jay’s done anything like this, and it makes him go cold, seeing this tiny victim and her chances of survival laid bare on a murder board.

     Antonio must have guessed what Jay is thinking, because he says, “She’s not dead yet.”

     Jay glances at the older man. He wonders if this is bringing up memories of Diego, because it sure is for him, as well as thoughts of other little boys that no one managed to save.

***

By the end of the day, they’ve set up a meet with the trafficking ring, because they’re the Intelligence unit, and that’s what they do.

     It’s Jay and Lindsay who go in, passing themselves off as a married couple, wanting a baby and driven to desperate measures by the snail-pace of legal methods and Jay’s supposed criminal history.

     He does most of the talking, but he feels Lindsay clinging to his side the whole time, sticking by him like a limpet. One of her hands slides under his jacket and she hangs onto his belt like it’s a lifeline, her other hand twisted around his elbow.

     When the guy goes off to make a call to his boss, Jay turns his head towards Lindsay and mumbles, with his lips against her hair, “How are you doing?”

     She shivers as a gust of wind catches them. Jay doesn’t think it’s just the cold making her shake like this. “I’m fine,” she whispers.

     The guy starts to come back, so Jay kisses the top of her head and then looks up and tries to make himself feel expectant, anxious, hopeful. If he feels it, then it will come out through his face.

     “We might be able to help you out,” the man says, and Jay feels the relief whoosh out of him in a breath.

     He turns to Lindsay straight away and she stares up at him. “Babe,” he murmurs, and then chokes up, too overcome with emotion to manage anything else.

     Lindsay squeaks, “I can’t believe this!” and presses her face into his jacket.

     Jay folds both arms around her and lets a string of ‘thank yous’ tumble out of his mouth as they arrange their next meet.

     When the guy leaves, an unmarked car and a massive blue van peel off and follow him discreetly. Lindsay hustles Jay back to their own car and slides into the driver’s seat. Big surprise, Jay thinks wryly.

     “We’ll catch up with them,” she tells him confidently. “They can’t lose that guy, he was an idiot.”

     Jay wants to tell her not to be too sure, but he keeps his mouth shut.

     She’s right, as it turned out, and they tail the guy successfully, not to some dingy warehouse, but to a brightly-lit apartment block in one of the rich areas of town.

     “Here?” Jay questions.

     Lindsay pulls the car into an empty space and shrugs. “Never underestimate the bad guys.”

     The team congregates at the door of the apartment, where they gear up and Voight briefs the uniforms who have come as backup. Lindsay slings her hands into the front of her vest and hangs on while she listens. Jay watches her, and tries to pretend that he isn’t watching her.

     They barge up the stairs to the fourth floor, hammer down the door and find themselves surrounded by cots and screaming children and two men who can’t control their machine guns. It has the potential to be a massacre, but Antonio takes out one of the guys and Jay the other, and then they spot their contact just as he throws himself out of the window.

     Jay can’t take his eyes off Lindsay’s face as she stares at the children, and then she reaches into the closest cot and pulls out a toddler with four teeth and thick blond hair. The child clutches at Lindsay, and she holds the baby close and cradles the tiny head and Jay just can’t look away.

***

Afterwards, when they’ve returned the children they can place and given the others up to the CPS, Lindsay drives them home.

     “I’m exhausted,” Jay says as they crash through the door of his apartment.

     “No kidding,” his partner mutters.

     Jay grabs his pyjamas and sidles into his ensuite bathroom to change. He actually musters up the energy to brush his teeth, but when he goes back into the bedroom Lindsay is lying face-down on the bed.

     “Get off the blankets,” he groans.

     She sighs and rolls over onto her back so that Jay can pull the blankets from under her. Her hair is a mess, her make-up had rubbed off long ago, and there are dark circles under her eyes from lack of sleep. Jay thinks she’s ridiculously beautiful for someone so tired.

     “I hate cases with children,” she says when he climbs into bed beside her.

     “Would you ever want kids?” Jay asks.

     She’s quiet for a second. He switches off the light and he almost thinks Lindsay has fallen asleep when she says, “I got pregnant, once.”

     Jay almost chokes. He manages, “What?” in a breathless, high-pitched kind of voice.

     “It was an accident,” she tells him. “I was fifteen and I thought it was the biggest mistake of my life.”

     “So what did you do?”

     She shrugs. “I couldn’t handle the idea of that kid growing up the way I did, you know? With an addict mother and an absent father. I just… it made me sick, the idea that it was this repeating cycle.” Lindsay laughs, but there’s no humour in it. “I got an abortion. I figured it was my only option – I had no way of knowing how much damage I’d already done, with the drinking and the smoking and whatever else I’d put in my body. I was pretty far along before I figured it out. I thought it was too late.”

     “Do you regret it?” he asks, and maybe that was too personal, but he wants to know.

     “No,” she tells him. “Honestly, I think it was the least selfish thing I’ve ever done. I wanted that baby so damn much, but I couldn’t handle the idea that it would have this miserable, stupid life, you know? And I thought, there’s always adoption, but that doesn’t always go so well.”

     He knows she’s thinking of what they saw tonight.

     “Hey, Lindsay?”

     “Hmm?”

     “For the record, I think you’re brave,” he murmurs, and then he rolls over onto his side until the skin of her arm is touching his arm and then he adds, “Goodnight.”

     “Night, Halstead.”


	6. Wednesday

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Which is obviously a special day because it's Chicago PD day! Last episode was awesome. I was all set for the show to totally go down a canon 'roomies' path and then there were, y'know, epic cliffhangers and stuff. Rude. 
> 
> Bring on the next episode!

They literally sleep for three hours. At least, Halstead does. Erin thinks she managed about fifty minutes.

     “Oh god,” her partner says when he opens his eyes, “it’s half-past seven already. We’re so screwed.”

     Lazily, Erin drags a hand across her face and suggests, “Sick day?”

     “Don’t be stupid, we all had the same late night,” he reminds her. “I bet everyone else will go in.”

     “You’re right,” Erin moans, and so she forces herself out of bed and gets dressed in a zombie-like haze of sheer exhaustion. Halstead makes coffee, and it smells so damn good that she steals his cup and has a couple of sips. It makes her head pound, and her stomach roll, but it’s worth it if it keeps her awake.

     Halstead makes toast, too, and practically forces it into Erin’s mouth as they charge down the stairs and hurtle into the car. She chews as she drives, and Halstead periodically holds toast up to her mouth for her to take another bite. It’s good teamwork, Erin thinks.

     They park outside the precinct and she leaps out of the car and brushes crumbs off her jeans and jacket. Halstead is already leaping up the stairs, taking them two at a time. Erin trails in his wake, a little bit slower, a lot more tired. Her eyelids are already drooping and she hasn’t even been at work for five minutes.

     As it turns out, both Antonio and Ruzek decided to take sick days. Erin is furious. So is Voight, which is a small comfort. She can hear him yelling at them over the phone in his office, telling them to get their asses in here.

     They both do get their asses in, and then it turns out that Antonio is actually sick, with red eyes, a streaming nose and a hacking cough. Voight tells him to get his damn ass right back to bed, where it belongs.

     Erin thinks that maybe the universe has decided to take pity on her, because they have a slow morning. They’re all just at their desks, cleaning up yesterday’s mess. The bullpen is filled with the soft sounds of keyboards hammering, the occasional scratching of pen on paper and the soft hum of Nadia’s voice when she takes the odd phone call.

     Erin’s been avoiding Nadia. She looks up now, briefly, and catches her eye. Nadia smiles, and awkwardly Erin tries to smile back, but she feels like a hypocrite. She spent all that time telling the girl that she had to get clean, rehab was okay, it was safe, and now she’s dealing with her own withdrawal by hiding away in her partner’s house and pretending that nothing is wrong. If she’s too scared to take her own advice, then maybe it’s not the advice she should be giving out.

     Uncomfortable and unhappy, Erin drops her gaze. Dimly, she hears Nadia going back to work, and she’s relieved that the girl hasn’t seemed to notice anything is wrong. When she looks up again, though, Halstead is staring at her.

     He widens his eyes when he sees her looking, and bobs his head forward in a little jerk, like he’s asking how she is. At least, that’s the message Erin gets from it.

     She shrugs, and then drags a hand over her eye and sighs. She’s exhausted.

     Halstead gets that, because he nods and makes a ‘well what can we do?’ type face. And yeah, Erin knows everyone is tired and they can’t do anything about it. He didn’t need to remind her, but she almost thinks it’s sweet that he did. Almost. She smiles at him, and tips her head to one side so that he sees what she’s thinking. Halstead grins back, and lowers his face to try and hide it, like he’s embarrassed that she just called him sweet.

     Ruzek, who apparently has no work to do, and is leaning back in his chair with his feet on the desk, catches the paper ball that he’d been throwing up and down and sits forward to point at Erin and Halstead.

     “You two,” he says with his mouth full (and what is he even eating? Erin has no idea), “are so damn cute when you talk without words.”

     Erin glares at him. Halstead does too.

     Ruzek shrugs. “What? I’m just saying. It’s a pretty cool trick.”

     “Why don’t you do some actual work, Ruzek,” Halstead suggests. His tone is light but his eyes are like chips of ice.

     Ruzek retreats a little bit. “No worries. I can do work.” He smirks at Erin a little bit and goes back to his throwing and catching game.

     Halstead rolls his eyes at Erin over the top of his computer, and she almost laughs, because even though he can be a pain in the ass, Ruzek is right. They do speak without words. Still, it doesn’t mean that it’s just the two of them, right? She could do this with anyone on her team! Halstead just has an… unusually communicative face. And she always knows what he is thinking.

     Erin banishes thoughts of her partner from her mind, because she’s tired and she’s clearly not thinking straight right now. She needs to focus on her work.

***

They get a call about a body at 3:15 that afternoon; then another, then another. Apparently people all around the city are dropping like flies.

     Voight must be as tired as the rest of them, because he pairs Antonio with Lindsay before he realises that Antonio isn’t there. There’s a moment of confusion before their boss corrects himself. “Sorry,” he rasps, and then, “Atwater can go with Lindsay. Halstead, you’re on your own, because I’ve got things to do.”

     “Yeah,” Jay says easily. “Sure.” He waits until Voight has turned around before he glances over at Lindsay. She grimaces, with a clear ‘help me’. She doesn’t want to mess up in front of Atwater.

     Jay trails after his partner and the newest detective as they head down to the cars. He stops Atwater just outside. “Hey, Atwater,” he says, “I know you’re new, but you can handle a body drop on your own, right? Lindsay and I had an argument this morning and I want to make sure she knows we’re good.” It’s a lie, but like Jay had hoped, Atwater jumps at the chance to do something solo. Besides, he’s a good guy. Jay should spend a bit more time getting to know him outside of work.

     Jay slides into the passenger seat beside Lindsay. She looks at him in surprise, and then laughs as she pulls away from the curb. “What’d you do to Atwater?”

     “We just swapped,” Jay tells her. “Besides, I wanted to make up with you after our fight.”

     She gives him a concerned look as they stop at a traffic light. “What fight?”

     Jay can’t stop a grin from spreading across his face. “The fight I told Atwater we had.”

     Lindsay laughs again, but she reaches across and smacks his chest with the back of her hand. “You’re such a jerk! If Voight finds out, we’re all screwed.”

     “Voight won’t find out,” Jay says, with more confidence than he feels. That man knows _everything_. “Besides, you’re exhausted and I’ve got your back.”

   “I’m sure Atwater’s got my back too.”

     Jay shakes his head. “Uh-uh. I’m the only person I trust to have your back.”

     She smiles, just a little bit. “I can take care of myself, you know.”

     “Not when you’re running on fumes,” Jay snorts. “You haven’t slept for days, Lindsay, come on. Just thank me for being a great partner and we can move on.”

     “You want me to _thank_ you?”

     “I think I deserve it, don’t you?”

     “What, for breaking Voight’s rules?” she banters.

     “Hey, you’re my partner. Voight can make all the rules he wants, but they don’t change that.”

     “Whatever,” Lindsay chuckles. There’s a pause, and then she says, “Thank you.”

     “Oh well that was easy,” Jay jokes.

     “Just take the gratitude and shut up, Halstead.”

     “Yes _ma’am_.”

     She smacks him again, with her eyes still on the road. Jay doesn’t look at her, but his cheeks are starting to hurt from a smile that he can’t control.

***

Voight dismisses them early.

     “But we haven’t wrapped the case yet,” Lindsay reminds him.

     “Yeah, and we’re not going to, not tonight,” Voight points out. “We’re all exhausted, we’re a man down, and those three dead bodies aren’t going anywhere.”

     “Four dead bodies,” Olinsky says, and he slaps a new folder down on his desk. “Just got another call.”

     Ruzek groans, summing up the way all of them are feeling about this case. A series of ODs on drugs which have been cut with something deadly, and no links to dealers or hookers. It’s a dead end.

     “Look, I’ll field this one, all right?” Voight tells them all.

     Jay stares at Lindsay and wills her not to protest, to offer to stay late. There are dark circles like bruises beneath her eyes and honestly she looks like she’s about to fall asleep on her feet. To his relief, she stays silent.

     “Thanks, boss,” Jay says quickly, and Ruzek echoes him.

   Lindsay starts walking towards the door without her jacket. Jay snatches it up from the back of his chair, grabs his own and jogs after her. He can feel Voight’s eyes burning into his back, but he reminds himself that it’s perfectly acceptable for him to give his co-worker her jacket. As long as their boss doesn’t see them get into the car together, they’ll be fine.

     He catches up to Lindsay at the cage, and passes her the jacket. “Forgot this.”

     “Oh, yeah,” she says, looking startled. “Thanks.”

     Jay puts his own coat on as they walk down the stairs and out of the front door. He sees Lindsay glance around as she approaches his car, through force of sheer habit. They’ve both become a little bit paranoid about other people seeing them leaving. It’s stupid, because they’re not even doing anything more than a platonic ride home. Still, better safe than sorry. Jay doesn’t want to be kicked out of Intelligence, and he has no doubts about Voight carrying out the threat.

     “You’d better drive,” Lindsay tells him. She tosses him the keys.

     Jay doesn’t know why she had his car keys, and he’s on the verge of saying that he wouldn’t have let her drive anyway, not in the state she’s in, but he restrains himself. He unlocks the car and watches Lindsay get into the front seat before he moves around to the driver’s side.

     “Are you okay?” Jay asks her quietly when his door is closed.

     “Just tired,” she assures him. Then she sighs, and adds, “I hate ODs.”

     “Saw a lot of them growing up?” Jay guesses.

     “You have no idea,” Lindsay says, and she sounds bitter. He doesn’t like the edge that has suddenly appeared in her voice, or the look on her face as she stares out the window.

     “It’s okay,” he tries to reassure her, and then wonders if that was a mistake. Lindsay doesn’t say anything, so Jay relaxes, because that’s the best thing about Lindsay. If he does something wrong, she’s gonna tell him. She’ll probably be blunt and a little bit obnoxious about it, but at least he’ll know.

     She’s silent for the rest of the drive, and the dullness of routine – driving from work to his apartment – coupled with the sounds of the traffic muffled by falling snow is soothing. When he pulls up outside his apartment, Jay’s feeling quite happy, actually. Exhausted, but happy. He has a good job, he has a great partner, and life is good.

     It takes him a minute to realise Lindsay isn’t getting out of the car. He goes around to her side and her head is lolling against the window, eyes closed. Carefully, Jay opens the door and catches Lindsay’s head.

     “Hey,” he whispers. “Wake up.”

     She mumbles something, but she’s too far gone. Jay leans over to unbuckle Lindsay’s seatbelt, hoping that if he gets her on her feet, she’ll recover enough to get upstairs and into his apartment.

     Jay tugs the seatbelt back and his hand brushes against Lindsay’s breast. He freezes, feeling his chest tighten. Crap, that was a mistake. She hasn’t woken up, which makes him feel relieved but also like a huge pervert. Damnit. He tries not to think about it, not to let the memory linger in his mind.

     He’s an adult, he tells himself. He can handle this. Carefully he slides his hand around Lindsay’s back and hauls her up and out of the car, making sure to keep her head away from the door. He holds her upright, and she’s sort of standing but mostly she’s just leaning on him.

     “’M tired,” she mumbles without opening her eyes.

     “Yeah, I can tell,” Jay laughs. “Come on, let’s get you upstairs. I’ll help you.” He slings an arm around her waist and she hooks her arm clumsily across his shoulders, fingers pressing against his neck.

     They’re only a few fumbling steps towards the door when Jay starts to wonder if he could carry her. She still hasn’t opened her eyes, and he doesn’t think she’s really awake. Maybe it would be kinder to carry her.

     There are four stairs leading up to the front door. They’re covered with patches of snow, and Jay thinks, it’s going to be really embarrassing if he drops her here.

     Worth a try, though. He bends his knees and slides his arm up Lindsay’s back, wraps his other arm around her legs and hoists her up. It’s easier than he’d expected. She’s lighter, too, than he’d anticipated, and the heavy winter coat is probably adding some weight. For the first time, Jay wonders if maybe it wasn’t just the drugs doing damage to her on that undercover mission. He thinks about the days she’s spent at his place, too, and realises that he hasn’t exactly been encouraging her to eat. He hasn’t seen her eat more than toast, actually, since the weekend.

     “I should feed you more,” he tells Lindsay.

     She shifts and then says, in a puzzled and slightly slurred voice, “Jay, are you carrying me?”

     He laughs. “Only a little bit,” he promises, and treads carefully up the stairs. He uses Lindsay’s feet to shove the front door open, and then he takes the elevator up to his apartment. She wraps both arms around his neck and sighs peacefully, pressing her face into his chest. There’s no way she would be doing this if she wasn’t so tired. It makes Jay want to whip out his phone and film it, or something.

     There’s a little bit of trouble unlocking his apartment door, but he manages, and then he staggers inside. Lindsay’s getting heavier now as his arms get tired, so he’s glad when he sets her down on his bed and goes back to lock the apartment door.

     Lindsay is definitely asleep when he gets back to his bedroom. She’s breathing slowly and deeply, and her legs are dangling off the end of the bed. Jay ducks down to unlace her boots and tug them off, and then he stands up and props his hands on his hips to address the situation. There’s no way he’s undressing his partner and putting her pyjamas on. She’s not a child, and neither is he, and that’s something that would be both uncomfortable and weird. Jay’s never seen Lindsay naked, or semi-naked, and he doesn’t intend the first time to be while she’s unconscious.

     He does take off her winter jacket, because she can’t sleep in that. There’s a struggle getting her arms through the sleeves, but it’s off eventually, and she’s wearing a jumper and jeans. Jay addresses the jumper issue, and he can’t believe that she keeps sleeping when he tugs it over her head, but she hardly moves. She’s got a t-shirt on underneath, which is good enough. Jay can’t imagine it’s very comfortable to sleep in jeans, but there’s no way he’s touching those. Instead, he drags Lindsay higher up the bed until her head is on the pillow and then he pulls the blankets out from under her and puts them over her instead.

     He’s almost too tired to get changed himself, after that. He manages it, but that’s all he can do. He flops into bed with a moan of relief. Damn, he’s looking forward to sleeping tonight.

     Before he closes his eyes, Jay turns onto his side and stares at Lindsay’s face in the dim light from his alarm clock. He thinks back to this morning, and yesterday morning, watching her wake up. In the haze that comes before sleep, Jay finally allows himself to feel glad, that he’ll get to see that again tomorrow. It’s something special.


	7. Thursday

In the middle of the night, Lindsay wakes up and says, “What the hell am I wearing?”

     Jay’s still half-asleep, but he sort of sniggers a little bit, so she smacks him in the shoulder and says, “Jay, it’s not a joke.”

     “’S funny though,” he slurs, and rolls onto his stomach.

     Lindsay mumbles something under her breath and then he feels her squirming around as she tries to tug her jeans off under the covers. “Seriously,” she says in exasperation, and then she flings her jeans on his pillow and keeps wriggling.

     Jay lifts his head and shoves Lindsay’s jeans off the edge of the bed. “Now what are you doing?” he asks.

     “Taking my bra off,” she says.

     “Uh… okay. Should I close my eyes or something?”

     “Don’t be a prick, Jay.” He can see her in the half-light as she pulls her bra out through the neck of her t-shirt and throws it over his head. “Lie back down, you’re making it cold.”

     Jay lies back down and Lindsay shivers and then burrows into his side. He can feel the skin of her legs, hot against his pyjama pants.

     “You were asleep,” he tells her, “so I figured you could sleep in your clothes.”

     She snorts and shoves her hands between his side and the mattress. “It’s freezing in here.”

     “Aren’t you going to say ‘thank you Jay for carrying me upstairs and putting me in bed’?”

     “You want me to thank you for getting me into bed?”

     “Not like that!” he protests, and he knows he’s blushing. It’s mostly dark in the room, which is a relief. Maybe he should change the topic. “How did you do that with your bra anyway?” Crap, no. Bad topic.

     “You must have seen a girl do that before,” Lindsay tells him. She puts her head against his shoulder and sighs. “Hey, Jay?”

     “Yeah?”

     “It’s Thursday.”

     “It will be Thursday if you ever let me sleep until morning, yeah. What’s wrong?”

     “Well, I’ve stayed here nearly a week,” she explains. “I said I’d only be a week, you know? I feel bad staying longer.”

     “You’re not better yet,” he points out. “You’re still shaking.”

     She laughs. “That’s because I’m cold.”

     Jay pauses, because he’s not properly awake and he wants to say the right thing here. “Erin,” he starts at last, “you can stay with me for as long as you want, okay? We’re partners.”

     “Partners don’t necessarily crash at their partners’ places,” Lindsay mutters.

     “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe you should ask Olinsky and Ruzek about that.”

     She laughs again, and shifts so that she’s pressed closer to him. “You’re a good partner.”

     “I’m fricking fantastic,” he says. “You’re not so bad yourself.”

***

Halstead falls asleep quickly; it takes Erin a little longer, but that’s because her mind is spinning at a million miles per hour.

     The thing is, she’s not ready to leave here. She feels safe, with her partner, and even though some part of her is starting to crave her own apartment, her own bed, her own solitary existence, she’s still not ready to leave. If Halstead says that she can stay, he probably means it, but Erin’s still afraid that this is somehow crossing the line.

     She flicks back to the memory of a few days ago, when she’d kissed him. It was stupid, and she really hadn’t thought it through, and she still feels like a bastard for doing it – but it was _nice_. Like, she can see herself doing that more often; kissing Jay. He’s sweet, that what it is, and he has this look in his eyes that’s so damn honest, which is a far cry from the guys she used to date before. As a teenager, Erin seemed to have a crazy knack for finding the worst kinds of men, and even though she pretends, she’s not that sort of girl. She’s the girl who asks them to stay the night, because she doesn’t want to lie alone in her bed after sex and feel stupid, and disgusting, and used. She’s not as thick-skinned as she acts.

     No wonder Halstead appeals to her as much as he does. He’s one of the few really decent, genuine people that she’s met in her life, and he takes care of her at work. It’s not a big surprise that somehow, in her mind, the idea that taking care of her is his job translated to real life as well. She needs to remind herself that partners don’t work that way. Yeah, he cares about her – but not like this. She can’t be lying in his bed and listening to him breathe with the stubble on his chin rubbing against her temple. It’s not fair, not to Erin, not to Halstead.

     So she’ll do what she’s always done with the guys who are too good for her. She’ll withdraw, pull back into her shell, tell them that they’re sweet, but that’s not what she’s looking for this time. Erin needs to take control of her life. She needs to stop using Halstead as a crutch. They’re coworkers. That’s all.

***

Jay feels her trying to leave, because his arm is draped across her waist.

     “Erin?” he says blearily. “What time is it?”

   “Early,” she whispers. “I just thought I’d get a head start packing my stuff.”

     Jay opens his eyes. He has to blink a couple of times before Erin swims into focus, but then he sees her. She’s lying on her back beside him, with her face turned towards him. Something has shuttered behind her eyes.

     “I told you – you don’t have to leave,” Jay says, low and serious.

     “I do, Jay, get off,” she says, shoving at his arm. “I can’t stay here.” Her face is relaxed, but she sounds close to tears. Jay has no idea what’s going on with her. He almost asks if it’s a hormone thing, but that would probably make things worse, right?

     “You can stay for as long as you want!” he exclaims. “Come on, Erin, it’s fine. We’re making it work, right? I love having you here.”

     She stops moving and stares at him. “You’re just saying that.”

     “I’m not,” Jay promises. “You know you can always tell when I’m lying.”

     Erin looks thoughtful, and then she nods. “Yeah, all right.”

     “Will you stay?” he asks. “I want you to stay.”

     “It’s not fair on you,” she says, but she sounds less convinced.

     “That hasn’t bothered you for the past week,” he points out. “Why have you suddenly started freaking out?”

     “Voight will be pissed when he finds out. I don’t want that to be because of me.”

     “He won’t find out,” Jay promises. “Anyway, we haven’t done anything wrong. I mean, it’s not for lack of trying…”

     She laughs, a little bit reluctantly. “I just don’t want to put you in an awkward position.”

     “It’s not awkward,” Jay promises. His heart is suddenly racing, and his muscles are tensing. His body knows that he’s about to do something stupid, even if his brain hasn’t figured it out yet. “ _This_ is awkward.” He doesn’t really have time to think; he just sort of leans forward, and down, and then Erin’s mouth is hot on his.

     The kiss doesn’t last long, probably because both of them are too surprised to really put their hearts into it. Erin pulls away first, pressing her head deeper into the pillow to move backwards and break the contact, and then Jay lifts his head anxiously. He might have just made a massive mistake and screwed up both his work and personal life in one fell swoop.

     “That wasn’t awkward,” Erin says.

     “No?”

     She smiles, and the dimple sinks into her cheek, making it look like a smirk. “That was a _start_ ,” she corrects him.

     Jay kisses her again, then, and they shift in the bed until he’s lying on top of her and one of her bare legs is slung around his hips. He moves so that he can kiss her neck, and lifts one of his hands up to slide his fingers through her hair.

     Erin wraps one hand around his shoulder, and then she says, “We have to go to work.”

     He lifts his head and she squeezes her knee against his hip. “Good point,” he says. “Can we… not talk about this right now? We have a case.”

     “Yeah,” Erin says, and she seems perfectly content to leave things at just one hasty, semi-dressed kissing session in bed. Her leg falls away and then she slides sideways out of the bed.

     Jay rolls onto his back and huffs out a quiet sigh. He’s not entirely sure what he’s feeling right now, but he does lever himself up on one elbow so that he can watch his partner walk out of the room in her t-shirt and panties.

***

Voight is practically vibrating when Erin walks into the bullpen, a few steps in front of her partner. He’s obviously been waiting for them to arrive, because he growls, “Take Halstead and go check out that guy.”

     Erin follows the pointing finger that Voight stabs at the board to the face of one Marco Wyatt, who is young, clean-shaven and has dark curly hair. She shrugs, and does a three-sixty, grabbing Jay’s arm as she walks past him and tugging him along with her.

     “Who is he?” she asks when she gets into the car, and Jay’s already checking his phone.

     “Some new hotshot dealer in town,” he says, and gives her the address. When he looks up from his phone, he’s grinning. “How much do you want to bet that Voight goes all ‘Chicago is my city’ on this guy’s ass.”

     “Don’t, Jay, this is serious!” Erin exclaims, but she’s biting her lip to keep from smiling. “Just tell me what I need to know, all right?”

     “I’m not allowed to drive _or_ make jokes now,” he says.

     “Don’t you think you were allowed to do enough this morning?” Erin fires back without thinking. The car goes quiet instantly. Tension crackles in the air. “Sorry,” she blurts. “We’re not talking about it, I know. We’re at work. I just slipped up.”

     “It never happened,” Jay promises, and then, “Make a left.”

     “What? No, it’s faster if I go straight at the lights.”

     “Turn left!” he insists.

     Erin shrugs. “Fine, I trust you. But if you’re wrong then you owe me a drink.”

     “I’d better not be wrong,” he says in a voice that makes her want to kiss him again. Erin stares at the road and forces herself to focus on work.

     They pull over in front of a house that is leaning so far to one side, Erin wants to go and prop it up with bricks before it topples down. Jay hammers on the door. “Chicago PD! Marco Wyatt?”

     There’s a thud from the side window of the leaning house. Erin ducks along the front balcony and catches sight of the their target fleeing, because of course he’d do a runner.

     “Jay!” she yells, and then she vaults the railing and lands on the ground. She’s running before she even gets her balance back, and picks her way through the long grass and the beer bottles. Ahead of her, Wyatt is still running, jacket tails flapping, stopping occasionally to cast crazy glances over his shoulder. Erin pulls her gun out while she runs and she sees the guy run into a dead end, slamming up against a chain-link fence.

     “Don’t move!” she hears Jay yell. He’s run down the other side of the house, and he’s got his gun trained on the dealer.

     The idiot turns around and starts trying to climb the fence instead. Erin holsters her weapon, and she jogs up to him. He’s not making much progress, mostly because the fence is wobbling all over the place and he seems a little bit drunk already. Erin reaches up and grabs his ankle. He kicks out at her face, but she dodges and then pulls, hard. He comes free from the fence and lands on the ground with a thud.

     Jay is there, instantly, bending over the guy and cuffing him. He grins up at Erin. “Nice one, partner.”

     “Yeah, yeah,” she grouses, but she’s pleased.

***

When Wyatt is in interrogation, Jay starts to head back to the bullpen. He figures Voight will want to take this guy, but his boss intercepts him in the hallway.

     “Why don’t you come in with me,” he suggests, and Jay shrugs, and turns around.

     “Sure,” he says.

     He’s a little bit surprised when Voight goes into the observation room first, but he figures why not just roll with it, instead of protesting. Jay knows he’s a roll-with-it kind of guy.

     “How’s Erin?” Voight asks him.

     Jay’s first response is denial. He wonders if this is a trick question. If he reveals too much, is Voight going to kick him out of Intelligence for sleeping with his protégé? We haven’t _slept_ together, his brain protests, and then Jay starts remembering exactly what they did do that morning and really he shouldn’t be visualising his partner’s legs so clearly in the middle of a conversation with his boss.

     “Halstead?” Voight growls. Apparently he hesitated a bit too long.

     “I’m not sure what you mean,” Jay covers himself. “I guess I noticed she’d been a bit… different, lately, but I figured that was just her settling back in from undercover.”

     “So she hasn’t said anything to you?”

     “Said anything about what?”

     “About anything!”

     Jay’s a little bit confused, which helps to cover his guilt as he lies, “Nah, she hasn’t said anything to me.”

     Voight grunts. It seems like that’s the end of the conversation, because he leaves the observation room a second later. Jay stays behind for a second, trying to wrap his head around what just happened. When he’s satisfied that he didn’t make a fool of himself or give anything vital away, he follows Voight into interrogation.

***

Erin knows that Voight is pissed. Two days of hard work and it all comes down to a single rookie dealer cutting his coke with strychnine. They haven’t even taken anyone big off the streets. She’s not surprised when Marco Wyatt is sent down to spend the night in the cage before going to processing – and she won’t be surprised if Voight somehow ‘loses’ him in the morning, either. The man hates people fouling up Chicago.

     So when Voight calls her into his office, she figures it’s mostly so he can blow off steam. He’s done it before, even if he never admits that’s what he’s doing, and Erin’s pretty relaxed about it.

     She’s totally blindsided when he says, “Tell me what’s going on between you and Halstead.”

     It’s probably her shock at the question that makes her hesitate before she says, “Nothing,” but she knows immediately that Voight will take it as an admission of guilt. She has to fix this. Now. “I just asked him for some advice about fitting back in post-undercover work, okay? I did some things I’m not proud of.”

     “That’s funny,” Voight says, although his face suggests that funny is the last thing on his mind, “because Halstead didn’t mention that to me earlier.”

     Crap, he’s already talked to Jay? Damn, Voight plans these things well. Erin has no idea what her partner might have said – except she _knows_ he didn’t say ‘we’ve been sharing a bed and almost had sex this morning’. Apart from that, pretty much anything is on the table.

     She plays it off as a casual thing. “Well yeah, he’s not going to tell you that he talked to me, because he probably thinks you’d castrate him! You went overboard telling him to stay away from me, Hank. You realise that, right?”

     Voight’s expression hasn’t changed, which could be a good sign or a bad sign. He taps his pen against his desk, and then he says, “You’re sure there’s nothing I should know about going on? Nothing that might compromise your work?”

     She feels guilty, remembering her slip-up in the car this morning, but she squashes the feeling the second it appears. Voight can sense guilt. He used to use her guilt back when she was a teenager to ferret out her misdeeds. “If anything serious was going on, I’d tell you.” That’s almost the truth, so it’s easy for her to say with an open face. There are only a handful of things in her life that Erin can’t tell Voight about. One of them is Jay. The other is this withdrawal, because she can’t bear to see his disappointed face when she admits that she had to start using again. Even though it was only oxy, even though she was undercover – Voight would say that she shouldn’t have put herself in that situation to begin with, and Erin knows that he would be right.

     “You can go, then,” he says, jerking his chin towards the door. “But don’t get any ideas. I know about everything that happens in my unit.”

     “I know you do, Hank,” she says, and then she leaves fast, before he can throw any more curveball questions her way.

***

Jay looks a little bit grey when he slides into the passenger seat.

     “I think Voight’s having me followed,” he says.

     “I picked you up two blocks away from the precinct,” Erin points out. “We can both agree that he freaked us out today, but don’t start getting paranoid.”

     “It’s not paranoid! It’s Voight, Erin, of _course_ he’s having me followed.”

     “Duck down in the front seat, then,” she says, and peels away from the curb.

     They’re both mostly quiet on the drive home, although this time neither of them is asleep. It’s more of a comfortable silence, broken once or twice by Jay bemoaning his fate. He seems pretty damn sure that Voight’s found out about them, and that he’s going to be fired. Erin pretends to be confident, and she hopes that she could talk Voight out of something like that, but he is a scary guy. Jay probably has the right response.

     She parks outside Jay’s apartment and hops out of the car, and he starts up the steps. Over his shoulder, he calls, “So, soup for dinner?”

     Erin says, “What?” because he hasn’t cooked her dinner since – well, since the weekend. In fact she doesn’t think she’s eaten dinner since the weekend. There hasn’t been time.

     “Do you want soup for dinner?” Jay repeats.

     “Okay,” she says. “What kind of soup?”

     “Pumpkin soup.”

     “Okay.”

     They walk into the elevator and Jay reaches around Erin to press the button. He lets his hand linger on her waist for just a second when he draws it back.

     “Do you even know how to make pumpkin soup?” she asks him, tipping her head back to look at him over her shoulder.

     “It comes from a can,” Jay says, in a voice that strongly implies he thinks she’s an idiot for not realising that.

     “How long has the can been in your house? Don’t lie.”

     “We bought it on the weekend!” he exclaims, affronted. “Come on, Erin, I wouldn’t try and make you sick with cans of soup.”

     “I suppose not,” she admits.

     “The dealer today was an imbecile,” Jay says as they walk out of the elevator and towards his door. “You should have seen him in interrogation. I just wanted to slap him silly, I swear.”

     “You might be the next Voight,” Erin tells him. “Running criminals out of town.”

     “I think Voight does a bit more than just run them out,” Jay says darkly.

     Erin knows that Jay doesn’t approve of everything Voight does. Hell, she doesn’t approve of everything Voight does either, but it’s not up to her to condone his actions. She has her fair share of mistakes.

     “Okay, tough guy,” she tells Jay instead. “Go and make soup.” It’s with relief that she toes off her boots and shucks her jacket, hanging it beside the door. Jay’s couch is soft and deep, and she sinks onto it gratefully. It’s the first time since she went back to work that she’s been able to relax without sleeping, and it feels good. “Want to watch TV?” she calls to Jay in the kitchen.

     The microwave starts up and Jay comes to sit next to her. “Only if there’s something good on,” he says. “I’m not sure I have the energy to sit through a whole movie anyway.”

     It’s just past nine, so Erin agrees with that, but she starts flipping through channels anyway. When the microwave stops, Jay prods her. “What?”

     “Go and get the soup,” he says.

     She’s incredibly comfortable on this couch. “Do I have to?”

     “Yes. It’ll get cold.”

     It’s with a sigh of resentment that Erin levers herself out of the couch and into the kitchen, where she burns her hand on a soup bowl. She hisses, and winces, and shakes the pain out. After deciding that she’s too lazy to run her finger under the cold tap, she wraps her hands in dishtowels and carries both bowls back to the lounge.

     “It’s hot,” she warns Jay.

     “Good,” he says, and spoons soup into his mouth without even a splutter.

     Tentatively, Erin touches her soup with the tip of her tongue and jerks back immediately. “How do you do that?” she asks her partner. “It’s hot!”

     “I don’t care.”

     They watch some sitcom for a while, but after two-and-a-half minutes of nothing but fart jokes, Erin begs Jay to change the channel. The only other things on are cop shows, which she doesn’t feel like watching, surprise surprise.

     Jay collects the empty soup bowls and ferries them into the kitchen. When he comes back, he holds out his hand. “Come on,” he tells Erin.

     She grabs his hand and lets him hoist her to her feet. “What?”

     “I’m exhausted,” he says. “Aren’t you?”

     “Is this another one of your tricks to get me into bed, Jay Halstead?”

     “I’m offended you’d even think such a thing,” he says. He pauses, and then adds, “I have been dying to try that whole kiss thing again, though. It’s been weighing on my mind all day.”

     “Well we don’t want you to be under that kind of pressure at work,” Erin plays along.

     He shakes his head, and they’ve moved so that now they’re standing and facing each other, and he’s still holding her hand. Erin sways a little bit, stopping herself from going up on tiptoes. She wants him to make the first move; some little insecurity that she can’t explain. Jay doesn’t disappoint. He slides his free hand up her back, resting it between her shoulder blades, and then he bobs his head and presses his lips to hers.

     Now Erin goes up on her toes, and she shuffles forward, socks on carpet, so that when they break apart and then kiss again, there’s a sting of static electricity. Jay makes a muffled noise but neither of them stop what they’re doing. Erin drops Jay’s hand and hooks her fingers into the waistband of his jeans instead, tugging him closer. Her other hand is pressed against the back of his neck, and it’s partly so that she can keep her balance.

     “We should probably go to bed,” Jay says at one point, when they halt to breathe.

     Erin lifts her eyebrows. “Already?”

     “Not like that!” he protests, and she can see his ears go red. She laughs and puts a hand on his chest.

     “Relax, stud. You know I’m only teasing.”

     “You are a terrible person.”

     “Hmm, really? Then why are you standing so close to me?”

     “I have no idea,” he says, and kisses her. “Maybe it’s because I’m your partner, so I have to have your back.”

     “It feels more like you’ve got my front,” she murmurs when his arms wrap around her, pulling her close to kiss her again.

     “No, I’m looking over your head,” he explains, demonstrating. “I can see everything behind you.”

     “Mmhmm,” she smiles. “Always an answer for everything.” She presses a kiss to the corner of his mouth. “Look at that smirk.”

     “You think _I_ smirk? Have you tried looking in the mirror?”

     Their banter has carried them into Jay’s bedroom, which Erin is surprisingly comfortable with. Normally she’d be giving herself a serious talk about letting things go this far this early in a relationship which she doesn’t know anything about yet, but she’s pretty sure Jay isn’t looking for sex right now. He looks tired, and seems content to just keep running his hand over the skin of her back when she changes her t-shirt.

     “That’s nice,” she notes, turning around.

     “You always do it to me,” he says. “I think it’s your version of spatial awareness, or something. Making sure I’m there. Are you going to do that thing with your bra again?”

     She does take her bra off through the loose t-shirt she wears to bed, just to amuse him. “You’re running out of toothpaste,” she informs him when she goes into the ensuite.

     “That’s probably because you’re using it all,” he says. His voice is muffled as he pulls his sweater over his head. Erin isn’t ashamed to admit that she looks behind her in the mirror when he takes his shirt off.

     “So maybe you should buy extra,” she says. “If I’m going to be staying here for a while.”

     “Maybe I should,” he replies.

     That’s as far as the relationship conversation goes for that evening, and neither of them intends to push it further. Instead, they climb into bed, and Erin lets Jay put his arms around her after he turns the light off.

     “I’m glad you decided to come and crash here,” he says.

     “Why? Because we couldn’t hold back our intense sexual tension anymore?”

     “No,” he scoffs. “Intense sexual tension? What?”

     “Never mind. Something Nadia said. Carry on.”

     “I’m glad you crashed here because there were some things we needed to talk about,” he explains. “As partners. And I feel like I know you better now.”

     “You knew me before.”

     “Yeah, but only because sometimes you forgot to put the walls up,” he says. “I don’t think you realise how guarded you are, Erin. It’s been nice, with you staying here, because you’ve finally let me see that you’re not always this strong superhero woman. Sometimes you’re scared, or lonely, or whatever.”

     “Well it’s nice to know you value my flaws.”

     “They’re not flaws. I’m trying to be sensitive, here, would you shut up?”

   She chuckles, and puts her cold nose against his shoulder. “I’m sorry.”

     “Well I’ve said my piece now, anyway.” Jay finishes his speech with dignity.

     “For what it’s worth,” Erin tells him, “I’m glad I came and crashed here too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Geez, I think that was the longest chapter I've ever written for any fic on Ao3! I had this weird compulsion about finishing it before I went to sleep, but it ended up being WAY longer than I expected, so I stayed up super late. Totally worth it, though! At least, I hope it was totally worth it. Why don't you drop me a comment and let me find out?
> 
> I'm pretty sure this fic is close to ending, but I already have an idea for another Linstead one (heh heh... oops) and I'm wondering about making it a sequel, so the end might not be in sight. Hope you're all enjoying this fic, because it definitely ended up longer than I intended!


	8. Friday

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't figure out if giving two chapters the same name is going to screw things up or confuse people or whatever, but I felt like naming it 'Friday II' or something would be an incredibly lame solution. I'll fix it later if it ruins everything, I guess.
> 
> Also, the last chapter! And this fic feels like one of the longest I have written, honestly, especially given it is only eight chapters. Gosh. That's a whole season of shipping angst (and really fun characters to write). I've got a fairly good idea for a second Linstead fic, but I can't decide if it would work better as a sequel or a standalone. Feel free to let me know what you think. Are there parts of this fic you would love to see reused?
> 
> Anyway, hope you enjoyed this! I definitely did :)

Erin’s the first one awake the next morning, which must be a good sign. She doesn’t even feel all that tired – just kind of relaxed, which is why she can’t be bothered to get out of bed yet.

     “Jay,” she says instead. “Are you awake?”

     “I am now,” he mumbles. “You sound chipper.”

     “Yeah, well, I _feel_ chipper.”

     He laughs, and rolls over to face her. “Well, you’ve made it through the week. That’s a good thing.”

     “Today’s not over,” Erin warns him, but she’s just being pedantic for the sake of it. There’s no real concern in her mind, not when everything is so good right now. She almost tells Jay that – almost – but then instead she finds herself saying, “I’m going to go and shower.”

     “And you’re telling me so that I can come and watch?”

     It makes her laugh, even as she shoves at his chest and rolls out of bed. “No, idiot. I just… thought you might value the information.”

     “Sure I do. Make sure to let me know if you use conditioner in your hair too.”

     “I _always_ use conditioner,” Erin tells him. “You should, too.”

     “Stop lecturing me on my hair and go and shower already.”

     “I know how much time you spend on it every morning!” Erin hollers over her shoulder as she leaves the room. “Just giving you some tips!”

     Jay calls something back, but she doesn’t hear him properly. It doesn’t matter, though, and she heads straight into the bathroom and twists the taps on the shower.

     It’s a relief, to finally step into the shower. She feels more alert than she has done in days. The water pounds down on her head and shoulders, and Erin feels as if it’s washing away all the pain, stress, blood and tears of the past week. She’s not in withdrawal, she’s not on drugs, and best of all, she seems to have developed a rather interesting _thing_ with Jay out of the whole thing. It doesn’t feel like anything could go particularly wrong right now.

     The showerhead falls off and smacks her in the arm on its way down.

     Erin yelps a little bit, and water sprays all over the place. She fumbles for the taps and shuts them off, and then looks awkwardly at the showerhead lying on the tiles at her feet.

     This is probably a sign that it’s time to end her shower. Erin climbs out, wraps the towel around herself and pads into the lounge.

     “Jay?” she calls.

     “What?” he answers from the bedroom. She makes her way through the house towards his room with her hair dripping down her back and onto Jay’s carpet.

     “I broke your shower,” Erin says awkwardly as she arrives in the bedroom.

     Jay, who is digging through a drawer and searching for a t-shirt, turns around and stares at her. “You did what?”

     “I didn’t mean to,” Erin offers sheepishly. “It just sort of… fell off.”

     “What fell off?”

     “Your shower,” she says, and then realises that she’s being stupid and corrects herself, “I mean the showerhead.”

     “It fell off?”

     “Yeah. Well. It fell down. Onto the floor.”

     Jay pauses. “Did you turn the shower off?” he asks at last.

     “Yes, but it didn’t help.”

     “Okay,” he says. There’s another pause, and then Jay repeats, “Okay.”

     “I’m sorry,” Erin mumbles.

     “We can deal with that later,” Jay decides. “We have to get to work.”

     Confused, Erin glances at the alarm clock. It’s not time to leave yet. “Right now?”

     “Voight called,” Jay explains, and there’s a grim look on his face that promises trouble.

***

Jay hurtles out of the car before they reach the precinct. He hits the ground running, and jogs the rest of the way while Erin drives. It’s not a perfect solution to their ‘holy crap Voight knows we’re together’ problem, but at least it feels proactive.

     Apparently Voight isn’t the only one who’s noticed. When Jay bursts into the precinct alone and jogs up the stairs, Platt hollers over the desk, “Hey, Halstead. Forgot your shadow today?” and gestures towards the cage, where he guesses Erin is already.

     “Yeah, yeah,” he mutters, and hurries down the corridor to the bullpen.

     Erin is already at her desk, and they make eye contact for a second when he comes in before she looks away, slowly, deliberately. This whole situation is driving Jay insane, it really is. He likes relationships to be clean-cut, easy to define, easy to understand.

     “Glad you could finally join us,” Voight says menacingly.

     Jay has his mouth open to protest; he was here barely a minute after Erin, and Ruzek _still_ isn’t in – but without turning to look at him, Erin shakes her head, almost imperceptibly, and Jay closes his mouth again. “Yeah,” he says instead, and steps towards his desk for Voight to brief them.

     He’s a little bit surprised, then, when there isn’t a long speech, or a lot of explanation. Instead, Voight slaps a single face on the board. “James Cole,” he says. “Violent, unpredictable, in the middle of a psychotic break. I don’t need to tell you guys why this is bad. Half the city’s police force is looking for him right now. _We’re_ going to find him, before he mass-murders a bunch of people. And no, I’m not being over dramatic. The guy has a fucking _armory_ in his house.”

     That’s incentive enough to get all of them on their feet and ready to move. “Where do you want us?” Olinsky asks.

     Simultaneously, Antonio says, “Do we have any idea who he’s targeting?”

     “It’s a psychotic break, Antonio,” Voight points out. “The guy’s a nutjob. Take Lindsay, check his house, talk to his relatives, see if you can track down any friends or known associates; places where he might be going. Halstead and Atwater, check the information we have from the psychiatrist and see if you can get anywhere with that. Olinsky… where’s your damn partner?”

     Olinsky looks around, deliberately slow. He shrugs. “Not here.”

     “Come with me, then,” Voight says, and the two men get up and leave together.

     Antonio beckons to Erin. “Let’s go,” he says.

     Jay wants to catch her arm as she walks past him – to make sure that Antonio’s got her back, that she won’t do anything stupid. He doesn’t. He turns his face away and doesn’t look at her when she leaves.

     “Hey, uh, Halstead?” Atwater asks carefully. “I’ve got the psychiatrist notes, like Voight said. How about you do half, I do half, and we pool knowledge?”

     “Sounds good,” Jay says, and he takes the pile of paper that Atwater gives to him and starts skimming through it, searching for warnings, trigger words, anything that will give them a freaking clue.

     Nearly fifteen minutes later, the sound of the phone ringing startles them all. Even Nadia jumps, and then she snatches up the receiver. Jay watches her face, and he starts getting to his feet as he sees her expression change.

     “Atwater,” he says, and in the same moment Nadia puts the phone down.

     “Lindsay says he’s got a kid and an ex-wife. They want you guys to track them down ASAP.”

     Jay checks his notes. “I got nothing,” he says, and turns to Atwater.

     The big man lifts a piece of paper triumphantly, waving it in the air. “The kid’s school. We should go check it out, right?”

     “Yep,” Jay says, and he grabs his coat. “Nadia, will you keep Voight updated?”

     “Sure,” she nods.

     Jay heads out of the bullpen with Atwater on his heels.

***

The school isn’t far away, and it’s started raining when they get there. Jay slams the car door and stares up at the school, which is an unwelcoming grey shape looming through the drizzle.

     The two detectives traipse through the front door to the reception desk, which is inconveniently empty.

     “All right, let’s split up,” Jay says. “I’ll go this way, you go that way; check every classroom for the kid and meet back here, yeah?”

     “Yeah,” Atwater agrees, and he lumbers off.

     Jay takes another irritated look at the receptionist’s vacant chair. All they really need to do is locate the kid, and they don’t have time to waste walking through a massive school like this and searching for one child.

     The first two classrooms he sees are packed with older kids – eleven or twelve, maybe – so Jay gives those a miss. He pokes his head into a couple of rooms filled with younger kids and has a quiet word with the teachers, but still nothing. He’s made it about halfway down the corridor before someone finally says something helpful.

     “Lily Cole?” the teacher muses. “I think she’s in one of the second grade classes. They’re outside for Sports Day.”

     “Thank you,” Jay says, and he starts jogging down the hallway. He pauses when he reaches the door at the end, and looks outside. Everything looks quiet. The children are gathered underneath a tarp stretched over the playground to keep the rain off. A single basketball spins, deserted, on the wet asphalt.

     Someone touches Jay’s shoulder and he swears and spins around, bringing up his gun.

     “Relax,” Erin says, putting her hand on the muzzle pointed at her face and lowering it slowly. “Don’t be so jumpy.”

     “Don’t sneak up on me!” Jay retorts. “Jesus, Erin.”

     Erin jerks her chin towards the kids. “Which one is his? We found the ex-wife and she told us to come here.”

     “Her name’s Lily,” Jay says. “I don’t know which one she is…” something catches his eye, pulling his attention away. There’s a little girl standing at the edge of the playground and a man kneeling down in the rain to talk to her. The man is holding a machine gun. “Crap, Erin, he’s here. To the left of the red slide.”

     “I see him,” Erin says quietly. She tucks her chin into her collar and speaks into her radio, calling the others for back-up.

     Jay isn’t exactly sure what his first move here should be. There’s a group of children in the way. He feels like he should tell them to run inside, but Cole moves first. Hefting his weapon, he fires into the air. The sound of the shots ricochet off the walls of the school and people scream and start moving in a panic. Jay spots the teachers desperately trying to corral their frantic students and herd them towards the doors. He and Erin slide outside through the chaos and Jay trains his gun on Cole.

     “Don’t move!” he yells.

     The man stares at Jay. He’s panting heavily, blinking through the rain, and yeah, he really does look psychotic. Jay doesn’t dare look to see where Erin is. His muscles are tense, ready to move the second that gun starts firing.

     “Fuck off!” Cole calls. “I’m visiting my daughter!”

     “Lower your weapon!” Jay shouts at him.

     Furiously, the man shoves his kid behind him. The girl lets out a yelp and smacks into the hard ground of the basketball court. Jay moves slowly around the perimeter of the yard, with rain soaking into his hair and dripping down his collar. It’s a tense standoff as Cole comes closer, pointing his gun at Jay.

     “What are you going to do?” he wonders. “Shoot me before I can shoot you?”

     Out of the corner of his eye, Jay sees Erin grab the little girl and climb with her under the bleachers.

     “We’ve got backup coming,” he says. “There’s nothing you can do to dodge a sniper. Look around, Cole. It’s totally open up here.”

     Cole isn’t paying attention to him anymore. “My wife divorced me,” he says. “She loves that kid. I’m going to fucking kill her.”

     Jay doesn’t know who Cole wants to kill, but the guy is starting to look around. Jay needs to keep his attention off Erin. “I know that’s rough, man, but you can work it out. Just…”

     “I don’t need your help!” Cole screams, and he fires at Jay. It’s a hail of bullets but either the man can’t see through the rain or he doesn’t care what he’s shooting, because they smack into the wall several feet to the right of Jay. Chunks of brick and mortar shoot out of the wall and Jay goes down on one knee.

     The gunman spins around and sees Erin. He levels the gun at her as Jay struggles back to his feet.

     “Cole!” he screams, feeling his throat go raw from the strength of it. Cole doesn’t turn around. Jay can see Erin, pushing the little girl further under the bleachers, putting herself in front of the gun.

     Jay would give anything for his sniper rifle right now. Instead, all he can do is point his handgun at Cole across the basketball court and fire, once, twice, straight into the man’s back.

     Impossibly, Cole doesn’t go down. Instead he lunges forward and drags Erin out from the bleachers by her throat. She struggles, and kicks, and Jay can see her gun in its holster. She only has one chance.

     He draws in all his breath, cups one hand around his mouth and hollers, “JAMES!”

     Through some miracle, the use of his first name actually makes Cole turn around, an instinctual movement, and then Erin’s gun is in her hand and she presses the muzzle against the man’s temple.

     “Freeze,” she rasps as Jay jogs closer, but Cole doesn’t freeze. Instead, he squeezes her throat tighter, tighter, until Jay can almost see Erin’s eyes bugging out of her head. She’s going to choke. She’s going to die, right in front of him and-

     Erin pulls the trigger and blows Cole’s brains across the room.

     The man’s body crumples and so do Erin’s legs. She drops like a stone and her gun clatters away from her, and then she puts a hand to her throat and coughs hoarsely. Jay’s starting to run towards her when she turns towards the little girl still crouching under the bleachers and says, “It’s okay, Lily, you can come out now.”

     Jay watches as his partner coaxes the child out and lifts her up. Lily Cole still has ringlets in her dark brown hair, even with the rain pounding down on them, and she clings to Erin’s collar with desperation.

     “Close your eyes,” Erin tells her, turning her face away from the body of her father. Erin wraps her arms tightly around Lily’s small body and then she looks up at Jay. Water drips from her eyelashes when she blinks, but she gives him an exhausted, overwhelmed sort of smile. “Thank you,” she tells him. “Good backup.”

     “Same to you,” he says, and puts a hand on her shoulder. “Are you okay?”

     “Peachy,” Erin mutters. “Let’s get out of here.”

***

Erin’s throat swells up a little bit, and for the rest of the day she can only talk in a whisper. She goes to the locker room after work ends and stares at the purple bruises already showing dark against the pale skin on her neck. It’s not the first time she’s had finger marks there.

     She’s the one who drives on the way home, and Jay twitches beside her, even more jerky than she was during withdrawal. He’s still shaky after the day they’ve had, and Erin can’t really blame him.

     As soon as they get inside his apartment, Jay slams her against the wall beside the door and kisses her, hard and rough and sloppy. “You’re a bloody idiot,” he tells her. “Where the hell was Antonio?”

     “Where the hell was Atwater?” Erin counters. “It’s our job, Jay, don’t make this a big deal.” She’s not going to stop him from kissing her again, though, hiking up one of her legs and pressing against her like they’re teenagers who can’t take a break long enough to find a bed.

     “I was very freaked out,” Jay mumbles into her collarbone.

     “So, what, is this post-psycho-gunman sex? I’ve never heard of that before.”

     “Don’t be an ass.”

     “Don’t be an adrenaline junkie,” Erin counters, and she shoves at Jay’s chest. “Why were you never this worried about me before?”

     “I was,” he protests, and slides his hands under her thighs, lifting her up so that she has to wrap her legs around him to feel grounded. “But there wasn’t exactly anything I could do about it, was there? We have to be professional.”

     Erin touches the short hair at Jay’s temples, runs one hand down the stubble of his sideburn and onto his cheek. “Jay,” she says, gently, “no matter what we are here, at work we’re still partners. We’re allowed to show that we care about each other, okay? And don’t worry about Voight. I’ll fix him.”

     “Good luck,” Jay mumbles, but he kisses her again and then lets her down. “This is better than just partners, what we have.”

     “I know,” Erin tells him.


End file.
